Discipline-Based Education Research Group
Date of this Version
2-2-2017
Document Type
Article
Citation
Abstract for DBER Group Discussion on 2017-02-02.
Article submitted to Social Sciences, 2016.
Abstract
In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data on a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: 1) Boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; 2) Consistent with gender-based norms, both middle school boys and girls report that the majority of their female friends are not science kinds of people; 3) Youth with gender-inconsistent science aspirations are more likely to be friends with each other than youth with gender normative science aspirations. Together, this evidence suggests that friendship dynamics contribute to gendered patterns in science career aspirations.
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Higher Education Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons
Comments
Copyright (c) 2017 G. Robin Gauthier, Julia McQuillan, Patricia Wonch Hill, Amy Spiegel, and Judy Diamond. Issued under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license.