Habitus and Social Capital in STEM Fields: Perspectives for Women’s Major and Career Decisions

• In Event: 087 - Regular Session. Education and Gender: Gendered STEM Education

Abstract

Recent scholarship scrutinizing the gender wage disparity has placed an emphasis on understanding the different fields of study that women and men choose before market entry. In particular, there is a broad literature observing and attempting to explain the scarcity of women in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) and other traditionally male majors. The majority of these theories and studies have focused on the reasons for which women do not enter male dominated disciplines, in essence, raising the question “why don’t women make the same choices about field of study and occupations that men do?” Yet there is a lack of empirical investigation and theory exploring why the few women who go into STEM and other masculine majors do so.

This paper therefore seeks to pose and help answer the question “why do women enter and persist in disciplines where they are minorities?” Applying Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to interpret a qualitative student sample at a conservative university, we find that differences in women’s embodied internal reasoning, categories of thought, and perceptions are important when they enter a dialectical process in which they struggle to persist in and legitimize their choices to enter STEM fields. Furthermore, we find that social ties to family, friends, and others in STEM fields are a key mechanism in granting women autonomy to persist in STEM fields.

Authors

• Ian Peacock, Brigham Young University

• Benjamin G. Gibbs, Brigham Young University

• Maika Malualelagi Tuala, Brigham Young University