CAREER: Understanding and Reducing Inequality in the Returns to K-12 STEM for College and Early Career Outcomes

职业：了解并减少 K-12 STEM 大学和早期职业成果回报的不平等

• 批准号: 2338923
• 负责人: Jordan Conwell
• 金额: $ 131.42万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-08-01 至 2029-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2338923&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Understanding; Reducing; Inequality; Returns

This CAREER study will focus on understanding the racial and gender disparities in STEM pathways spanning K-12 education, higher education, and the labor market. Prior research on this topic investigates racial and gender disparities in access to STEM course taking and test scores in K-12. This has implications for unequal access to STEM prior to the end of high school for subsequent educational and labor market trajectories. In contrast, this CAREER research will take the less common approach of describing the college and career pathways of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White women and men who graduate from high school with equivalent STEM course taking and test scores. The goal is to investigate the magnitude and mechanisms of potential racial and gender disparities in the returns to comparable K-12 STEM opportunity and preparation. The research study will describe potential racial and gender differences among such students across the subsequent outcomes of obtaining a STEM college degree and working in a STEM industry. The research will focus intensively on the potential for intersecting racial and gender differences in college and career pathways of those with equivalent K-12 STEM preparation. The project contributes to the understanding of for whom and under what circumstances early life investments in STEM education later pay off economically. Findings can point to mechanisms underlying potential disparities in such returns. These are crucial insights at a time when STEM skills and credentials are increasingly important for one’s life chances in today’s knowledge economy.The research will draw upon state-level administrative data from Texas covering the high school graduating classes of 2008-2013, with students followed into higher education and the labor market. K-12 STEM preparation will be measured with detailed course taking records and state standardized test scores. Potentially unequal returns to K-12 STEM preparation will be assessed across three outcomes, measured up to ten years after high school graduation: 1) probability of obtaining a STEM college degree, 2) STEM intensity of industry of employment, and 3) annual wages. The research will also develop a decomposition model of race-gender differences in the wage return to K-12 STEM preparation. The model intends to help explain differences in choice of and returns to STEM degrees and STEM-intensive industries among those with equivalent preparation. This project will implement and evaluate an online course plug-in to help college students emphasize their STEM skills and link their courses of study to careers. The effort is based on a working hypotheses and preliminary findings showing that a relatively large number of women and Black and Hispanic students with strong K-12 STEM preparation opt for social science courses of study in college. Therefore, emphasizing the scientific rigor of, and improving the employment and wage returns to, social science fields is a way to tap into an underlying distribution of historically marginalized STEM talent. This is a Faculty Early Career Development Program project responsive to a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers the most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. This project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项职业研究将着重于了解跨越K-12教育，高等教育和劳动力市场的STEM途径的种族和性别分布。关于该主题的事先研究调查了在K-12中获得STEM课程和测试分数的种族和性别分布。这对在高中结束之前就无法获得不平等的STEM访问，以实现随后的教育和劳动力市场轨迹。相比之下，这项职业研究将采用较不常见的方法来描述黑人，西班牙裔，亚洲和白人女性和男子的大学和职业途径，这些女性从高中毕业，同等学历的STEM课程和测试分数。目的是在回报中调查潜在的种族和性别分布的大小和机制，在可比的K-12 STEM机会和准备中。该研究将描述此类学生之间潜在的种族和性别差异，以获得STEM大学学位和在STEM行业工作的结果。这项研究将重点关注与同等K-12 STEM准备人员的大学和职业途径相交的种族和性别差异的潜力。该项目有助于理解谁以及在何种情况下为STEM教育的早期生命投资以后经济上取得了回报。调查结果可以指出此类回报中潜在差异的基本机制。这些是在STEM技能和证书对当今知识经济学中的生活机会越来越重要的时候，这是至关重要的见解。这项研究将借鉴德克萨斯州的州级行政数据，涵盖了2008 - 2013年高中研究生班，学生遵循高等教育和劳动力市场。 K-12 STEM制备将以详细的课程进行记录和州标准化考试成绩来衡量。在高中毕业后长达十年的三个结果中，将评估对K-12 STEM制备的可能不平等的回报：1）获得STEM大学学位的可能性，2）工作行业的STEM工业强度； 3）年工资。这项研究还将在工资返回到K-12 STEM制备中的种族性别差异的分解模型。该模型旨在帮助解释有等效准备的人中选择和返回茎学位和茎密集型行业的差异。该项目将实施并评估在线课程插件，以帮助大学生强调他们的STEM技能，并将其学习课程与职业联系起来。这项工作是基于一个工作的假设和初步发现，表明，具有强大K-12 STEM准备的相对数量的女性，黑人和西班牙裔学生选择在大学学习社会科学课程。因此，强调社会科学领域的科学严谨和改善就业和工资恢复，是一种利用历史上边缘化的STEM人才的潜在分布的方式。这是一项教师早期职业发展计划项目项目，响应全国科学基金会范围的活动，该计划提供了最有声望的奖项，以支持早期职业教师，他们有可能在研究和教育中充当学术榜样。该项目得到了NSF的EDU核心研究（ECR）计划的支持。 ECR计划强调了基本的STEM教育研究，该研究在该领域产生了基础知识。投资是在重要，广泛和持久的关键领域进行的：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大了STEM的参与以及STEM劳动力发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务。