Collaborative Research: GSE/RES: Diverse Young Women Traveling Pathways to STEM

智力价值：这项研究的目的是研究(1)获得和使用与STEM相关的社会、文化和经济“资本”(或资源)和(2)在大学里接受特定教育途径之间的关系。这些年轻女性大多是少数族裔，在学业上有天赋，她们参加了一个旨在激发和保持她们对工程的兴趣的高中项目，为期3年。2006年至2009年，在3个州(CO、IA和俄亥俄州)的10所公立学校实施了这项名为女性新兵探索工程(免费)的高中计划。FREE从131名女孩开始，她们大多是城市女孩、拉丁裔女孩、黑人女孩、美国原住民女孩和亚裔美国女孩，她们在数学和科学方面都是优秀的学生。这项拟议的研究将跟踪调查所有在高中期间和高中后第一年免费留校的年轻女性(n=81)。在这个群体中，22%的人在攻读工程专业，35%的人在攻读其他STEM专业，33%的人在攻读非STEM专业，10%的人还没有决定。皮埃尔·布尔迪厄的“社会资本”框架将被用来分析参与者带来的资本，以及他们在大学期间将使用的资本，包括免费获得的资本，以追求他们的大学目标。“教育路径”的概念将被用来研究大学学位的制度结构、大学中的支持来源以及大学中个人的决定和选择之间的动态相互作用。数据将包括这些年轻女性的高中背景、经历和生活的信息(观察；采访；人口统计、自我效能和社交网络调查；黑莓PIN、Messenger和电子邮件消息；网站和Facebook帖子)。类似的新数据将通过脸书上的帖子、采访和调查来收集有关女性大学经历的新数据。定性数据将通过创建先验类别(基于研究问题)和现场类别(从数据中出现)的编码方案进行分析，并使用ATLAS.ti软件程序进行管理。调查数据将用描述性统计进行分析，在调查问题来自全国调查的情况下，这些数据将用于全国比较。广泛的影响：本研究试图通过以下方式影响更广泛的教育界和整个社会：阐明资本形式与工程和其他STEM领域职业选择之间的联系；促进STEM领域增加多样性的政策和方案；让非特权学生参与与其STEM情况和选择有关的研究；使教育、妇女研究和STEM领域的研究生为教育相关问题的研究做好准备，特别是那些涉及代表性不足的人口的问题；并通过各种来源广泛传播成果，如同行评议的期刊、面向STEM的协会、免费网站、面向大学的网站和杂志、地方和国家媒体以及演讲活动。

Intellectual Merit: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between (1) access to and use of STEM-related social, cultural, and economic "capital" (or resources) and (2) specific educational pathways in college for a group of academically talented, mostly minority young women who participated for 3 years in a high school program intended to spark and sustain their interest in engineering. The high school program, Female Recruits Explore Engineering (FREE), was implemented in 10 public schools in 3 states (CO, IA, and OH), from 2006-2009. FREE began with 131 mostly urban, Latina, Black, Native American and Asian American girls who were strong students in math and science. The proposed study will follow all the young women who stayed in FREE during high school and their first post-high school year (n=81). In this group, 22% are pursuing engineering majors, 35% are in other STEM majors, 33% are pursuing non-STEM majors, and 10% are undecided. Pierre Bourdieu's "social capital" framework will be employed to analyze the capital the participants brought with them and will have used in college, including that gained in FREE, to pursue their college goals. The concept of "educational pathways" will be used to examine the dynamic interplay between institutional structures for pursuing college degrees, sources of support in college, and individual decisions and choices made in college. Data will include information about the young women's high school backgrounds, experiences and lives (observation; interviews; demographic, self-efficacy and social network surveys; Blackberry PIN, Messenger and email messages; website and Facebook postings) from the FREE project. Comparable new data will be collected about the women's college experiences through Facebook postings, interviews and surveys. The qualitative data will be analyzed by creating a coding scheme of a priori categories (based on the research questions) and in situ (emerging from the data) categories and managed with the ATLAS.ti software program. Survey data will be analyzed with descriptive statistics, and where survey questions have been drawn from national surveys, those data will be used to make national comparisons.Broader Impacts: This research seeks to impact the broader education community and society as a whole by: illuminating the connections between forms of capital and choice for or against careers in engineering and other STEM fields; contributing to policies and programs for increasing diversity in STEM fields; involving non-privileged students in research related to their STEM circumstances and options; preparing graduate students in Education, Women's Studies, and STEM fields for research on education-related issues, particularly those involving under-represented populations; and widely disseminating results through diverse sources, such as peer-reviewed journals, STEM-oriented associations, the FREE website, college-oriented websites and magazines, local and national press, and speaking engagements.