2012 - Science Aspirations, Capital, and Family Habitus: How Families Shape Children’s Engagement and Identification With Science

Attribution: Archer, Louise, DeWitt, Jennifer, Osborne, Jonathan, Dillon, Justin, Willis, Beatrice, & Wong, Billy
Researchers: Beatrice WillisBilly WongJennifer DewittJonathan OsborneJustin DillonLouise Archer
University Affiliation: King’s College; Stanford University
Email: Louise.archer@kcl.ac.uk
Research Question:
How and why is science a more ‘‘thinkable'' aspiration in some families and not others?
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: American Educational Research Journal
Journal Entry: Vol. 49, No. 5, Pp. 881-908
Year: 2012
Findings:

– While family habitus is not deterministic (there is no straightforward alignment between family habitus, capital, and a child’s science aspirations), social inequalities in the distribution of capital and differentially classed family habitus combine to produce uneven (classed, racialized) patterns in children’s science aspirations and potential future participation.
– Children’s aspirations and views of science careers are formed within families, and these families play an important, albeit complex, role in shaping the boundaries and nature of what children can
conceive of as possible and desirable and the likelihood of their being able to achieve these aspirations.
– Where middle-class family habitus, capital, and a child’s identification with science were in alignment in favor of science, the result was particularly powerful, with families able to foster and capitalize on their child’s interest, enabling them to occupy a strong and privileged position from which to potentially pursue these aspirations further. Science appeared as a ‘‘natural” choice within such families- albeit one that is actively nurtured and resourced.
– Even where middle-class families lacked science-specific capital, they were able to mobilize generic middle-class resources to develop and support their children’s interest in science.
– Within most working-class families, science was less ‘‘familiar,” being more ‘‘peripheral” to parents’ and children’s everyday lives. These families tended not to possess the same quantity and quality
of economic and science-related capital (cultural and social capital) to provide an equivalent basis for supporting the development of children’s science-related aspirations.
– Although some working-class minority ethnic families were able to draw on cultural discourses
(of science as a desirable/appropriate career aspiration) that encouraged and supported science aspirations among children, these aspirations were still circumscribed to some extent by a lack of wider capital.
– The authors suggest that even at the age of 10/11, many working-class children are already disadvantaged and at risk of falling out of the ‘‘leaky pipeline” that leads to a science career, even if they enjoy science.

 

Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: AspirationsClassCultural CapitalInequalityInterestParentsScience CapitalRegions: InternationalMethodologies: QualitativeResearch Designs: InterviewsAnalysis Methods: Content Analysis Sampling Frame:10-year old Students and Parents
Sampling Types: Non-RandomAnalysis Units: StudentData Types: Qualitative-Cross Sectional
Data Description:

Bourdieu’s habitus is generally used in relation to the individual, but the concept is extended here to explore the family environment (or ‘‘micro-climate;’) within which young children are growing up and starting to develop their ideas about science and their relationships (and dis/identification) with science. The authors use family habitus to refer to the ways and settings in which families operate- as such the concept seeks to go beyond simplistic, conscious forms of identification with science (e.g., attitudes to/ liking of science) to also encompass values and everyday practices.

The article reports on 160 semi-structured interviews (92 children aged 10/ 11 and 78 parents from 11 schools), The interviews represented a range of social/economic contexts, including multiethnic urban, suburban, and rural schools. This analysis comes from a much larger longitudinal study by the authors. A sampling frame was constructed to represent six target categories of school (e.g., ‘‘multiethnic urban/inner city schools;’’ ‘‘working-class suburban;’’ ‘‘predominantly White, middle-class, suburban schools;’’ ‘‘independent single sex’’) to ensure a range of school contexts and populations, and prospective schools were purposively sampled from within these target categories.

Two topic guides (for use with children and parents) were developed, covering areas such as: aspirations for the future (and sources of these aspirations), interests in school and out, what they like/dislike about school, attitudes toward and engagement in school science, and broader perceptions of science. Parental interviews focused on: family context, perceptions and experience of the child’s schooling, involvement in education, child’s personality and interests, their child’s aspirations, and their own perceptions of and relationship with science and engineering, including their
thoughts about why so few children pursue science post-16.

Initial analysis of the qualitative data identified eight broad ‘‘types’’ of family/child relationship to science

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:STEM Interest/Pursuit/Aspirations/Intent
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts