Attrition of Women in STEM

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonghong Jade Xu
Keyword(s):  
College Graduates ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Career Outcomes ◽  
Attrition Rates ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Female Presence ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Mathematics

Data from a national survey are used to examine how individual characteristics and social structural factors may influence college graduates choosing an occupation that is congruent with their undergraduate field of study. Analysis is conducted separately for males and females and for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM majors. Comparisons between the subgroups help to identify factors that may contribute to improving career outcomes and, in particular, lowering the attrition rates in STEM at transition from college to employment. The results suggest that positive career outcomes, such as better earnings and greater job satisfaction, are associated with individuals having an occupation congruent with their college major. STEM graduates have a lower unemployment rate than non-STEM graduates, but female presence in STEM majors remains low; and gender inequality (salary and employment status) in STEM occupations is significant from the very beginning of postbaccalaureate employment.

scholarly journals Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Experiences of Student-Athletes in STEM with Dual Advising

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Nikola Grafnetterova ◽  
Hilda Cecilia Contreras Aguirre ◽  
Rosa M. Banda
Keyword(s):  
Student Athletes ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Division I ◽  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Dream Work ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

Despite the nation's critical need for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college graduates, the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I student-athletes represent a small portion of STEM majors. Student-athletes pursuing STEM disciplines benefit from the assistance of academic and athletic advisors; this study explored student-athletes' experiences with such dual advising. Building on Terenzini and Reason's (2005) comprehensive model of influences on student learning and persistence, our findings highlighted STEM athletes' need for individualized advising, support engagement in STEM, and options and flexibility in the curriculum. The study also exposed uncertainty about the different roles of academic and athletic advising units and the ways limited communication diminishes the effectiveness of the advising units' collaborative efforts.

Exploring the Spatial Ability of Undergraduate Students: Association With Gender, STEM Majors, and Gifted Program Membership

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
So Yoon Yoon ◽  
Eric L. Mann
Keyword(s):  
General Education ◽  
Spatial Ability ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Path Model ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Ability Test ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Gifted Program ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Mathematics

Spatial ability has been valued as a talent domain and as an assessment form that reduces cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic status biases, yet little is known of the spatial ability of students in gifted programs compared with those in general education. Spatial ability is considered an important indicator of potential talent in the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study explored undergraduate students’ spatial ability, focusing on mental rotation, by investigating the relationships of three variables with performance on a spatial ability test, in terms of test scores and test completion time. A three-way analysis of variance revealed statistically significant main effects of gifted program participation, choice of academic major, and gender, suggesting that students who participated in a gifted program, who majored in a STEM discipline, or who were male outperformed their counterparts on a measure of spatial ability when the other conditions were equivalent. No interaction effects existed among the three variables, indicating that none of them functioned as a moderator of students’ performance on the spatial ability assessment. However, when spatial ability was considered as a mediating variable in a path model, gender had the largest total effect on the probability of students majoring in a STEM area. In addition, the more time students spent on the spatial ability test, the better they tended to perform, which is a finding inconsistent with current literature.

“I Just Fell into It”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda M. Flores
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Filial Obligations ◽  
Secondary Teaching ◽  
Class Status ◽  
And Gender

This chapter explains the forces that channel Latinas into the teaching profession. The changing opportunity structure of the economy, familial social networks, and social structural forces of racial, class, and gender inequalities creates a situation in which gender and race refracts working-class status, such that primary and secondary teaching has emerged as the top occupation drawing Latina college graduates. Many of these women are the first person in their families to graduate from college, and this chapter suggests that a strong obligation to help their families financially influences their choices. These forces, at work in their families and universities, both constrain and enable their pathways into teaching and influence the emergence of cultural guardianship. For this reason, “class ceilings” help to explain how Latina college graduates navigate their educational and career choices with collectively informed agency and filial obligations to family members.

Climate Perceptions and Identity Interference Among Undergraduate Women in STEM

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isis H. Settles ◽  
Rachel C. O’Connor ◽  
Stevie C. Y. Yap
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Women In Stem ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Undergraduate Women ◽  
Identity Interference ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Performance Perceptions ◽  
Public Regard

In a study of 639 female undergraduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, we found that the relation between a negative academic climate and more interference between identities as women and as scientists, and lower science performance perceptions, was mediated by lower psychological well-being. We also found partial support for gender identity (centrality, private regard, and public regard) as a buffer of the link between climate/interference and psychological well-being. Specifically, gender centrality buffered the link between identity interference and well-being. Gender public regard buffered the association of both negative climate and interference with well-being, and gender private regard exacerbated the link between interference and well-being. We discuss these results in terms of the benefits that gender identification may provide for women in STEM and suggest that educators create networks for women in STEM, while working to reduce sexism and improve academic climates. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ 's website at http://pwq.sagepub.com/supplemental

scholarly journals Life Science Undergraduate Mentors in NE STEM 4U Significantly Outperform Their Peers in Critical Thinking Skills

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. ar54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari L. Nelson ◽  
Claudia M. Rauter ◽  
Christine E. Cutucache
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Academic Year

The development of critical thinking skills in recent college graduates is keenly requested by employers year after year. Moreover, improving these skills can help students to better question and analyze data. Consequently, we aimed to implement a training program that would add to the critical thinking skills of undergraduate students: Nebraska Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math 4U (NE STEM 4U). In this program, undergraduates provide outreach, mentoring, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to K–8 students. To determine the impacts of serving as an undergraduate mentor in this program on critical thinking, we compared undergraduate mentors (intervention group) with nonmentor STEM majors (nonintervention, matched group) using the valid and reliable California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) as a pre/post measurement. Importantly, before the intervention, both NE STEM 4U mentors and nonmentor undergraduates scored similarly overall on the CCTST. However, the posttest, carried out one academic year later, indicated significant gains in critical thinking by the NE STEM 4U mentors compared with the nonmentors. Specifically, the math-related skills of analysis, inference, and numeracy improved significantly in mentors compared with nonmentors.

Structural Antecedents of Aggravated Assault: Exploratory Assessment of Female and Male Victimization

2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisa Smith ◽  
Ted Chiricos
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Regression Coefficients ◽  
Violent Victimization ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
Aggravated Assault ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
And Gender

This article examines whether the social structural factors predicting violence against women are different from those predicting violence against men. Using sex-specific, aggravated assault rates from Florida counties (n= 60), this regression analysis tests three principal explanations of violent victimization: routine activities, social disorganization, and gender inequality. Although initially some difference in the predictive factors for male and female aggravated assault rates emerged, a test of the equality of regression coefficients revealed no “real” significant differences. Despite this finding, it remains important to assess the influence of societal factors on rates of violent victimization. The national trend indicates that male violent victimization is declining and female violent victimization is relatively stable. It is important to understand why this is the case.

Migration and family change in Egypt: a comparative approach to social remittances

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucile Gruntz ◽  
Delphine Pagès-El Karoui
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Return Policies ◽  
Social Remittances ◽  
Power Set ◽  
Gender Ideals ◽  
Gulf States ◽  
And Gender

Based on two ethnographical studies, our article explores social remittances from France and from the Gulf States, i.e. the way Egyptian migrants and returnees contribute to social change in their homeland with a focus on gender ideals and practices, as well as on the ways families cope with departure, absence and return. Policies in the home and host countries, public discourse, translocal networks, and individual locations within evolving structures of power, set the frame for an analysis of the consequences of migration in Egypt. This combination of structural factors is necessary to grasp the complex negotiations of family and gender norms, as asserted through idealized models, or enacted in daily practices in immigration and back home.

To The Problem Of Researching Individual Concepts In Author’s Texts

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Nadezhda V. Razumkova
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Semantic Space ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Anthropological Linguistics ◽  
Individual Concepts ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Aesthetic Values ◽  
Individual Style

This article reviews the text concept studies on the material of a Russian poem and its translation into Chinese within the framework of the anthropological linguistics. The study of individual concepts, embodying the ethical and aesthetic values of a creative person, is relevant and promising for the further development of establishing their role in the implementation of a writer’s individual style in translation. The author analyzes the lexical-semantic space, which implements a fragment of the content of the universal concept of HOME, presented in the original and translated texts. The author presents a linguistic experiment carried out among Chinese students. Its purpose was to consider the cognitive (indicative, figurative, and situational) basis of the content of the translation and the degree of its compliance with the author’s intention. The tasks include the description of translation transformations as well as interpretation of the mental reactions of Chinese respondents. The results obtained indicate that the author’s representation of the HOME concept is achieved through the use of cognitive structures, associated with Russian traditional views. The representation of the discursive concept by interpreters is accompanied by cognitive refraction in terms of the associative development of thoughts. Literary translation is seen as an indirect act of intercultural communication, the subjects of which — the author, translator, and reader — have a set of individual characteristics, lining up on the principle of following an ethnic cultural standard to individual-emotional and gender marked manifestations.

scholarly journals WARTIME AND POST-WAR RAPE IN FRANCO'S SPAIN

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
ÁNGEL ALCALDE
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Structural Transformations ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
War Rape ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Post War ◽  
Spanish Archives

Abstract By examining the experience of rape in Spain in the 1930s and 1940s, this article explains how the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship dramatically increased the likelihood of women becoming victims of sexual assault. Contrary to what historians often assume, this phenomenon was not the result of rape being deliberately used as a ‘weapon of war’ or as a blunt method of political repression against women. The upsurge in sexual violence was a by-product of structural transformations in the wartime and dictatorial contexts, and it was the direct consequence, rather than the instrument, of the violent imposition of a fascist-inspired regime. Using archival evidence from numerous Spanish archives, the article historicizes rape in a wider cultural, legal, and social context and reveals the essential albeit ambiguous political nature of both wartime and post-war rape. The experience of rape was mostly shaped not by repression but structural factors such as ruralization and social hierarchization, demographic upheavals, exacerbation of violent masculinity models, the proliferation of weapons, and the influence of fascist and national-Catholic ideologies. Rape became an expression of the nature of power and social and gender relations in Franco's regime.

NYC Selective Specialized Public High Schools and Honors College STEM Degrees: A Previously Unexplored Relationship

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 304-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pessy J. Sloan
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
New York ◽  
High Schools ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Public High Schools ◽  
Public High School ◽  
Honors College ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Relationship

This study examined the relationship between attending one of the nine New York City (NYC) selective specialized public high schools and graduating from an honors college with a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree, compared with honors college graduates who attended any other high school. A causal-comparative study design was applied. The participants consisted of 1,647 graduates from seven honors colleges, from 2011 to 2015, in the northeastern United States. Of the 1,647 graduates, 482 students graduated from NYC selective specialized public high schools and 1,165 students graduated from other high schools. The study found a significant difference ( p < .05) between the two groups. A larger percentage of NYC selective specialized public high schools graduated with a STEM degree from an honors college than students from other high schools. These results support the positive relationship between attending a NYC selective specialized public high school and graduating with a STEM degree from an honors college. Results and implications are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document