A Tale of Two Neighborhoods: Neighborhood Effects and Trajectories in Engineering Science: Systematic Research Review

• In Event: 2484 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 14. Neighborhoods and Education

Abstract

Increasing and diversifying the STEM workforce has been a national goal for the past several decades. Despite the national focus and the significant investment by the government, this objective is till unmet. Per a 2015 report, the STEM workforce is “no more diverse than 14 years ago”. Efforts to prepare students for STEM careers has focused on high schools and higher education. Children’s learning is affected by multiple environments from an early age. In this article, we conducted systematic review of the literature to identify neighborhood contextual structures and processes that are most related to race-gender groups’ preparation for STEM careers. The analysis of the studies reveal a tale of two neighborhoods – the effects of concentrated affluence and that of concentrated poverty. The analysis further reveals the greater effects of concentrated affluence through multiple neighborhood advantages including: social order, collective socialization, social capital, role models through professional and most importantly through well-resourced institutions of learning (childcares, pre-schools and schools). Higher neighborhood socio-economic status had consistently significant positive relationship with children’s math achievement in the reviewed studies. However, there is lack of explicit link between this early neighborhood effect to later STEM career trajectories in the literature. A gap that this review aims to expose in order to guide future studies.

Author

• Habiba A Ibrahim, Washington University-St. Louis