Collaborative Research:Community College Roots of STEM:Interactive Influences of Individual, Secondary School, & College Factors Predicting the Success of Underrepresented Gro

尽管对具有技术和科学素养的美国劳动力的需求日益增长，但女性和种族/少数民族群体成员在STEM职业生涯中的代表性仍然不足。围绕这一现象的知识基础中的一个主要差距是对许多代表性不足的学生在进行STEM教育和职业选择时所走的不同道路的理解。例如，女性和代表性不足的少数族裔最初进入社区大学就读的意图是转到四年制院校，这一比例不成比例。这项拟议的研究将通过调查通过社区大学进入四年制院校的途径如何有助于那些获得STEM学位的人的性别和种族不平等的根源，来解决目前研究基础中的差距。这项研究将明确考察在社区大学接受大专教育的学生的个性特征和教育经历。具体地说，这项多阶段的研究将调查导致女性和代表性不足的少数族裔完成STEM专业的可能性低于白人男性的结构性和个体因素。该项目的量化部分将把社区大学生的数据整合到现有的数据集(Roots 8-16数据集)中。目前的数据集将北卡罗来纳州公立学校从八年级开始的学生的行政记录与北卡罗来纳州大学系统的16个校区之一联系起来。该项目将增加从社区学院转到四年制大学系统的学生的行政记录，从而使样本多样化，同时加强可能从中得出的结论。该项目的这一部分侧重于初中和高中数学和科学学习的结构性机会和限制，以及它们对以后教育轨迹的影响。研究人员将考察学习的障碍和机会，以确定不同背景对学生的影响是否存在差异。研究的定性部分包括对社区学院学生的一系列采访，这些学生表示希望转到四年制大学，并对STEM专业感兴趣。学生们将在项目的第一年和三年后再次接受采访，以检查他们的经历，并进一步探索定量研究的结果，包括：对过渡到四年制大学的影响，以及STEM专业的女性如何应对社会结构性限制和机会。

Despite growing demands for a technically and scientifically literate US labor force, women and members of racial/ethnic minority groups remain underrepresented in STEM careers. A major gap in the knowledge base around this phenomenon is an understanding of the different pathways that many underrepresented students take when making STEM education and career choices. For example, women and underrepresented minorities are disproportionately likely to enroll in a community college initially with the intent of transferring to a four-year institution. The proposed research will address the gap in the current research base by investigating how pathways through community colleges to four-year institutions contribute to the roots of gender and racial inequalities in those who earn STEM degrees. The study will explicitly examine the individual characteristics and educational experiences of students who started their post-secondary education in community colleges. Specifically, this multi-phased study will investigate the structural and individual factors that contribute to women and underrepresented minorities' lower probability of completing a STEM major, compared to White men. The quantitative portion of the project will integrate data on community college students into an existing dataset (Roots 8-16 dataset). This current dataset links administrative records on students from the public schools of North Carolina from eighth grade into one of the sixteen campuses of the UNC university system. This project will add administrative records on students who transfer from community colleges into the four-year university system, thus diversifying the sample while strengthening the conclusions that may be drawn from it. This portion of the project focuses on the structural opportunities and constraints to math and science learning in middle and high school and their impact on later educational trajectories. Researchers will examine the barriers and opportunities to learning to determine whether there are differential impacts on students from various backgrounds.The qualitative portion of the study consists of a series of interviews with community college students who have indicated a desire to transfer to a four-year university and an interest in majoring in STEM. Students will be interviewed the first year of the project and again three years later to examine their experiences and to further probe the findings from the quantitative study, including: influences on making the transition to four-year colleges and how female STEM majors navigate social structural constraints and opportunities.