Following in their Footsteps: the Relationship Between Parent STEM Occupation and Student STEM Coursetaking in High Scho
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Following in their Footsteps: the Relationship Between Parent STEM Occupation and Student STEM Coursetaking in High School Jay Stratte Plasman 1
& Michael
Gottfried 2 & Darryl Williams 3
# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Encouraging persistence, success, and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields of study continues to be a point of emphasis across the United States. While there does exist a body of research exploring STEM education and STEM learning, less is understood about the informal factors that may encourage STEM pursuit. In particular, parents can play a critical role in influencing their children to pursue STEM. High school is a key period in the development and promotion of science capital. Therefore, we explore how parent employment in STEM occupations relates to student decisions to participate in both applied and academic STEM coursework in high school. We find that parent STEM occupation does matter, and that the impact is linked to the number of parents in a STEM occupation as well as income level of the family. Our findings provide evidence for the growing theory focusing on the growth of science capital among individuals and how this form of capital may be passed from parent to child. Policy and practice implications are discussed. Keywords Secondary education . STEM education . Coursetaking . Science capital
* Jay Stratte Plasman [email protected] Michael Gottfried [email protected] Darryl Williams [email protected]
1
Department of Educational Studies, College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
2
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
3
Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Journal for STEM Education Research
Introduction The science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pipeline continues to be a concern in U.S. education. In high school, it is often cited that high school students lack interest in STEM-related careers and/or are not adequately prepared for the challenges of a technology driven global economy (Xue and Larson 2015). With respect to higher education, the proportion of degrees being awarded in many STEM fields (i.e., physical sciences, biological sciences, and math) has flattened over recent decades, which is concerning given the push to increase the number of STEM-trained individuals (Snyder et al. 2019). Hence, there is a concern about a ‘leaky’ STEM pipeline – one that begins in high school (as students make choices about what classes to take) and continues through college where students are not majoring in STEM or leave the major altogether (National Center for Education Statistics 2014). As educational stakeholders seek out ways to improve enrollment into and reduce attrition out of STEM, increasing the interests and abilities of high schoolers in STEM fields has become one key policy starting point. This is so because previous research has already established that students who go on to enjoy later success in STEM fields
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