2013 - Cohort changes in the relationship between adolescents’ family attitudes, STEM intentions and attainment

Attribution: Burge, Stephanie W.
Researchers: Stephanie W. Burge
University Affiliation: University of Oklahoma
Email: sburge@ou.edu
Research Question:
1) Are family attitudes less likely to constrain young women's STEM intentions and attainment in the 1990s, as compared to the 1970s? 2) Alternatively, did the effect of family attitudes become less gendered during this period, such that family attitudes constrained both women's and men's STEM intentions and attainment among the 1992 cohort?
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociological Perspectives
Journal Entry: Vol. 56, No. 1, Pp. 49-73
Year: 2013
Findings:

– In the 1970s, family attitudes negatively affected only women’s STEM intentions and attainments.
– By 1992, attaching importance to future marriage hindered neither women’s nor men’s STEM intentions.
– By the 1990s, both family-oriented young women and men were less likely to intend to major in STEM fields.
– Although adolescent family attitudes that emphasized parenthood negatively affected both women’s and men’s STEM intentions in 1992, by 2000 parenthood-oriented young women still significantly lagged behind men in STEM attainment.
– Women who placed high priority on family had lower STEM attainments than similarly family-oriented men in the 1990s, even after controlling for STEM intentions.
– They did not find variation in the effects of young women’s family attitudes across race/ethnic groups.
– Family attitudes continue to exert greater constraints on women’s STEM attainment than men’s, although at a somewhat reduced magnitude in the later cohort.
– These findings suggest that young women may make strategic decisions to limit work-family conflict well before actually facing these conflicts, cutting off a range of educational and career opportunities very early in their life course.

 

Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: Academic AchievementAttitudesChoice of MajorCollegeFamilyGenderSTEMRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsLogistic Regression Models Sampling Frame:Students in 1970s and 1990s
Sampling Types: Nationally RepresentativeAnalysis Units: StudentData Types: Mixed-Cross Sectional
Data Description:

National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS 1972) and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS 1988). The two surveys bracket important sociohistorical periods in which substantial shifts in gender-related attitudes and patterns of educational attainment occurred. The NLS sample contains 4,450 Black, Hispanic, and White high school seniors who graduated from high school, were enrolled in either a community college or a four-year university between October 1972 and October 1974. The NELS sample consists of 3,772 Black, Hispanic, and White students who graduated from high school, were enrolled in either a community college or a four-year university at some point between October 1992 and October 1994.

DVs:
– STEM intentions: Respondents’ intended college majors, assessed when they are high school seniors in 1972 (NLS) and 1992 (NELS).
– STEM attainment: In the NLS, respondents’ bachelor’s degree majors (assessed in 1979) are used to determine this variable. In the NELS, respondents’ bachelor’s degree majors (assessed in 2000) are used.

IVs:
– Family attitudes: The author used two variables to assess this. The first was “how important is it to find the right person to marry and have a happy family life?”, which was assessed identically in NLS 1972 and NELS 1992. This was based on a 3-point scale. The second was, in the NLS cohort, “how many children do you eventually expect to have?” Their responses were recoded to match the NELS question. In the NELS, they asked “how important is it to have children?” and it was assessed on a three point scale.
– Academic preparation: This is measured using transcript measures of composite ability tests in math and reading administered both in the NLS and the NELS, high school grades calculated from high school transcript records, math and science courses taken in high school, and curricular track.
– Family context: This measures family situations during their senior year in high school. The author averaged students’ perceptions of their mother’s and father’s expectations for their educational attainment reported to create one standardized measure of parents’ educational expectations for both the NLS and NELS.
– Parents’ occupational status: Measured using two dichotomous measures that indicate if the respondents’ mother and father are employed in a professional occupation.
– Number of siblings: Controls for educational differences due to family size.
– A dichotomous variable indicates if the student lived with two biological parents in their senior year of high school.
– Family socioeconomic background: Measured using parents’ education, occupational prestige, and income.
– Students’ race: Non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, or Hispanic

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Gender and STEM
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts