High School Contextual Characteristics and Students’ College STEM Participation: A Review of Social Science Research

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. STEM Education

Abstract

The majority of the jobs in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields are occupations recognized as the ones with the best economic prospects in the near-term future. STEM jobs are plentiful, but there’s still a shortage of qualified candidates to fill them. Furthermore, there is a notable underrepresentation of disadvantaged minorities and female students in the STEM fields. Prior research indicates that organizational features of high schools influence the STEM learning process. This paper synthesizes what previous literature has established regarding the importance of high school contextual characteristics (composition) on students’ participation in STEM fields during their post-high school years. Through this approach our study lays out how educational institutions, such as high schools, might help increase and perpetuate the economic inequality, due to uneven placement of students on the stable and well-paid STEM fields as a consequence of the interaction between their individual race and gender, and the characteristics of the contexts where they obtained their high school education.

Authors

• Martha Cecilia Bottia, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

• Roslyn A. Mickelson, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

• Cayce Jamil