Girls' and boys' developing interests in math and science: Do parents matter?

Jacobs, Janis E.; Bleeker, Martha

doi:10.1002/cd.113

Cited by 121 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…8 Working within this framewo rk, Bleeker and Jacobs (2004) and Jacobs and Bleeker (2004) present results in support of a claim that a mother's belief about her children's science competence affects whether her daughters and sons develop a greater interest in science compared to other pursuits. 9 Among high school seniors in the 1992 NELS, the unadjusted female-to-male odds ratio for intending to complete a science or engineering major is 0.3 1;…”

Section: Occupational Plans and College Major Selectionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

Morgan¹,

Gelbgiser²,

Weeden³

2013

Social Science Research

242

200

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a b s t r a c tIn this article, we analyze gender differences in college major selection for respondents to the Education Longitudinal Study (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006), focusing on educational pathways through college that lead to science, engineering, or doctoral-track medicine occupati ons and to non-doctoral track clinical and health sciences occupations. We show that gender differences in college major selection remain substantial, even for a cohort in which rates of enrollment in postsecondary education are more than ten percent higher for young women than for young men. Consistent with other recent research, we demonstrate that neither gender differences in work-family goals nor in academic preparatio n explain a substantial portion of these differences. However, the occupational plans of high school seniors are strong predictors of initial college major selection, a finding that is revealed only when occupational plans are measured with sufficient detail, here by using the verbatim responses of students. We also find that the association between occupational plans and college major selection is not attributable to work-family orientation or academic preparation. Finally, we find gender differences in the association s between occupational plans and college major selection that are consistent with prior research on STEM attrition, as well as with the claim that attrition also affe cts the selection of majors that are gateways into doctoral-track medicine. We discuss the implications of the predictive power of occupational plans formed in adolescence for understanding sex segregation and for policie s intended to create a gender-balanced STEM and doctoral-level medical workforce.

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Section: Occupational Plans and College Major Selectionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

Morgan¹,

Gelbgiser²,

Weeden³

2013

Social Science Research

242

200

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…half of 1045+922) were to have continued this would have increased mathematics participation by nearly 10% overall. The increasing body of research into girls' attitudes to the study of mathematics (Fennema & Leder, 1990;Jacobs & Bleeker, 2004;Mendick, 2005;Solomon, 2007) suggests that the female participation issue emerges at a much younger age and therefore it would need to be tackled well before these students approached the age at which they are expected to decide on advanced studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring social patterns of participation in university-entrance level mathematics in England

Noyes

2009

Research in Mathematics Education

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In recent years in England there has been considerable attention given to a range of apparent crises in mathematics education, one of which has been the long term decline of participation in universityentrance level (Advanced or A) mathematics. Given the negative impact upon mathematics participation of Curriculum 2000, together with the government's emphasis on Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, the political intent to increase participation in Advanced level mathematics is clear. This paper uses the National Pupil Database (NPD) to develop a descriptive statistical account of how completion of Advanced level mathematics varies along the social axes of SES, ethnicity and gender. The process of working with the NPD is discussed in some depth in order to clarify the processes involved in this type of quantitative analysis and to illustrate how this analysis can be used to raise questions about who is doing what mathematics in the post-16 agerange.

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“…Existing literature has consistently reported that parents' and peers' attitudes and behaviour towards mathematics represent two major environmental influences on children's formation of academic attitudes (Jacobs & Bleeker, 2004;Jacobs & Eccles, 2000;Ryan & Patrick, 2001;Tiedemann, 2000;Yee & Eccles, 1988). Studies by researchers such as Armstrong (1980), Eccles (1983), Jacobs andBleeker (2004), and Jacobs and Eccles (2000) have suggested that parents' beliefs about mathematics might contribute to their children's mathematics course enrolment decisions.…”

Section: Subjective Normsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies by researchers such as Armstrong (1980), Eccles (1983), Jacobs andBleeker (2004), and Jacobs and Eccles (2000) have suggested that parents' beliefs about mathematics might contribute to their children's mathematics course enrolment decisions. Jacobs and Bleeker (2004) also reported that parents' mathematics-promoting behaviour was related to their children's later interests and activities.…”

Section: Subjective Normsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Psychology Meets School Mathematics in PISA 2012: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour in Australia

Skrzypiec¹,

Lai²

2017

PSYCH

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Educators and government administrators are keen to find interventions to change the rapidly declining enrollments in senior high school mathematics. In 2012, PISA introduced measures to examine the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), a prominent theory from social psychology for encouraging changes in behavior (and perhaps mathematics enrollments). This paper sought to examine the applicability of the TPB for predicting the relationship between students' intentions, their mathematics attitudes, subject norms, perceived controllability and self-efficacy as well as their mathematics behaviour, using items created by PISA 2012 question designers to assess these TPB constructs. Australian PISA 2012 data from 14,481 students found that the hypothesized TPB antecedents for studying mathematics were very poor predictors of mathematical intentions and indirectly, weak predictors of mathematical behaviour. The Attitudes factor i.e. an interest in mathematics, was found to be the strongest predictor of mathematical intentions. The poor predictive capacity of the TPB was proposed to have been due to ill-defined indicator items in the PISA 2012 measuring instruments, which did not comply with the TPB's principles of compatibility and aggregation. Future studies testing the TPB in the context of studying mathematics would benefit from undertaking Elicitation studies to identify appropriate TPB antecedents and indicators of the mathematics behaviour being targeted.

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Girls' and boys' developing interests in math and science: Do parents matter?

Cited by 121 publications

References 34 publications

Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

Exploring social patterns of participation in university-entrance level mathematics in England

Social Psychology Meets School Mathematics in PISA 2012: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour in Australia

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