Bourdieu, networks, and movements: Using the concepts of habitus, field and capital to understand a network analysis of gender differences in undergraduate physics

Abstract

Current trends suggest that significant gender disparities exist within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at university, with female students being underrepresented in physics, but more equally represented in life sciences (e.g., biology, medicine). To understand these trends, it is important to consider the context in which students make decisions about which university courses to enrol in. The current study seeks to investigate gender differences in STEM through a unique approach that combines network analysis of student enrollment data with an interpretive lens based on the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu. We generate a network of courses taken by around 9000 undergraduate physics students (from 2009 to 2014) to quantify Bourdieu’s concept of field. We identify the fields in which physics students participate by constructing a weighted co-enrollment network and finding communities within it. We then use odds ratios to report gender differences in transverse movements between different academic fields, and non-parametric tests to assess gender differences in vertical movements (changes in students’ achievement rankings within a field). Odds ratios comparing the likelihood of progression from one field to another indicate that female students were more likely to make transverse movements into life science fields. We also found that university physics did a poor job in attracting high achieving students, and especially high achieving female students. Of the students who did choose to study physics at university, low and middle achieving female high school students were more likely to decrease their relative rank in their first year compared to their male counterparts. Low achieving female students were also less likely to continue with physics after their first year compared to their male counterparts. Results and implications are discussed in the context of Bourdieu’s theory, and previous research. We argue that in order to remove constraints on female students’ study choices, the field of physics needs to provide a culture in which all students feel like they belong.

The Impact of Science Capital on Self-Concept in Science: A Study of University Students in New Zealand

“…To do this, we employ the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984). Recent research has made use of Bourdieu's sociological theory as a framework for understanding the uneven patterns in student interests and pursuits in science (Archer et al, 2013(Archer et al, , 2015Turnbull et al, 2019). Bourdieu's theory enables us as researchers to place individuals in the context of their environment, and to understand how social, cultural, and historical factors structure the world in which individuals live, and the internal dispositions they hold.…”

Social class inequalities in attitudes towards mathematics and achievement in mathematics cross generations: a quantitative Bourdieusian analysis

“…In this article, we report on questionnaire and assessment data. We recognise that much recent educational research drawing on Bourdieu's conceptual tools uses qualitative methods; however, we also note the prominence of survey methods and quantitative analysis in Bourdieu's (1984) early empirical work and in recent educational studies which operationalise concepts including habitus and capital using survey methods (Turnbull et al, 2019;Pomeroy, 2021).…”

“…Educational systems recognise the cultural capital that students bring to the educational field and which allows them to meet institutional expectations (Laurea & Weininger, 2003). Scholarship over the last decade has pioneered the exploration of forms of capital specific to particular academic disciplines, for example, science capital (Turnbull et al, 2019) and mathematical capital (Jorgensen, 2018). Bourdieu (1986, p. 48) stated that "this embodied capital, external wealth [is] converted into an integral part of the person, into a habitus".…”

Ka rere ngā mea katoa – everything flows

“…1 in 6 NZers are Māori, and 1 in 12 are Pasifika, yet PhD participation rates for both groups are below 5% in these disciplines (Ministry of Education 2020). Low student participation rates (Turnbull et al 2019) represent the start of the 'leaky pipeline' which sees females making up less than a third of the global scientific R&D workforce (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2019). In New Zealand universities, science and engineering (along with education) had the largest gender performance pay gaps between 2003 and 2012, with males making up 70%-80% of the academic staff in these areas in 2012 (Brower and James 2020).…”