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This article examines gender differences in science achievements and attitudes during the middle grade, when our nation's scientific pipeline begins to emerge. It uses data from a large, nationally representative sample of eighth‐grade students (NELS‐88). The findings show that in these grades female students do not lag behind their male classmates in science achievements tests, grades, and course enrollments. Actually, some female students have higher probabilities of enrolling in high‐ability classes than males. However, female students have less positive attitudes toward science, participate in fewer relevant extracurricular activities, and aspire less often to science careers than males. Students' science attitudes and career interests vary according to students' gender as well as their racial or ethnic background. These findings emphasize the need to further examine the interrelationships between gender and race or ethnicity in our efforts to understand the processes leading to women's limited participation in science‐related careers.

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The complexities of school tracking have resulted in patchy explanations of how it might affect students' academic success. We aim to develop a comprehensive understanding of tracking by investigating its long-term relationships with student outcomes. Our study is informed by sociological and social psychological theoretical perspectives that explain how this school practice may wield its influence. We use panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS:88) for a comprehensive analysis of the associations between ability grouping in the eighth grade and subsequent social psychological and academic variables in the 10th and 12th grades, respectively. By covering three waves of data that monitor the mathematics progress of middle school youngsters as they go through high school, we present the durable relationships of tracking. Our method compares students in tracked and untracked schools, and further partitions these students into high and low ability groups. Our results reaffirm that tracking has persistent instructional benefits for all students. Yet, high-achieving students who are tracked in middle school may suffer considerable losses in self-concept that subsequently depress their achievement, and mathematics course-taking. Implications are for a broad range theory of tracking and for further empirical work on the viability of heterogeneously-grouped classes.