Behavioral And Contextual Factors That Affect The Females And Minority Students ' Career Choices Essay

This study is an analysis of what factors influence student’s college major choices. Upon following previous scholars, it was noted that gender, race and ethnicity, and one’s family socioeconomic status are all significant factors in college major choice. There are distinguished trends and discriminations of college major and career choices between females and minorities. However, these typical trends vary depending on the student’s socioeconomic status. 35 student interviews of different gender, race, and socioeconomic statuses were then conducted to test to prove

The idea of not performing adequately on a task is something that many people can relate too. This uncomfortable feeling can be experienced throughout many different situations. Previous research suggests that stereotypes on how people are perceived to act or perform can hinder their thought processes and impact their overall performance. This is referred to as stereotype threat. Individuals undergo stereotype threat when they feel pressure to conform to the stereotype that is present. Stereotype Threat is not limited to any category or situation, but has been found to be more prominent in certain areas. This paper will focus on stereotype threat effects in math performance between genders, race/ethnicity and age.

Stereotype threat is a psychological phenomenon that could affect everyone and influence people’s performance. Research in this felids shows that the fear of confirming the negative stereotype of people’s identity groups can affect how people think and act. Stereotype threat can also cause people to underperform when people try hard to disprove these negative stereotype. In the book “Whistling Vivaldi”, Claude Steele analysis how stereotypes affect our life and what we can do to reduce the effect on us. In our everyday lives, everyone experiences the negative stereotype about their groups. As a female scientist, I will face the negative stereotype that women are worse scientists than men, and female scientists are less capable than male scientists.

I was captivated by this article because it discusses social constructs and how they shape a person’s career choice. Bell describes how gender roles denote a career path in children at an early age. Research showed that girls tend to choose careers such as nurses, teachers and stylist, while boys often pick firefighters or cops. Children tend to lean towards stereotypical jobs based on their gender. Consequently, the brain is complex and hard to decipher so we cannot be sure if this is biological or environmental. We do, however, have the power to change how we communicate career choices to the youth. A man can become a stylist and a woman can become an engineer. In other words, labeling an entire job on behalf of a gender limits a candidate choice. At an early age, my family taught me how important it was to choose hobbies based on whether or not I enjoyed them. Specifically, this meant having the chance to partake in camps and sports without my gender stopping me. Having this background served as my foundation when I chose my career

This article focused on a study that was conducted with predominantly high school-aged adolescent females. They were taken to a nontraditional career fair and were surveyed on their Occupational Self-Efficacy (OSE) before and after the career fair. Each of the adolescent females rated the occupations based on how confident they were about completing the tasks required for that occupation. The results of the career fair and the impact it had on the female attendees stood out to me because it provided them with options to different occupations not dominated by just females, males as well. The article also mentioned that our goal as professional school counselors, we should broaden our students’ career

All students admitted in the GWC Summer Immersion Program (SIP) were encouraged to participate in the study. Surveys were used to collect the data for the study, which included 7 published scales measuring STEM identity, self-efficacy, motivation, engagement, and STEM career interests. Thus far, only pre-test has been conducted, and 31 female students between the grades of 10 and 12 participated. The demographic profile of the participants included 26% White, 19% Asian, 35% Black, and 26% Latino. Furthermore, the participants were consisted of 52% of 10-11th graders and 48% of 12th graders.

The career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) assessment, evolved from Albert Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy (Betz & Taylor, 2001). The CDMSE test results, considers one’s confidence level as it pertains to education progress and career development (Betz & Taylor, 2001). Bandura speculated there is a strong relation between one’s ability to become successful and exercise competency, with the amount of confidence and the extent to which one perceives themselves as capable (Behrend & Howardson, 2015). Personally, this theory supports what I have found to be true with education and life experience.

Girls are taught at a young age that they must play with dolls and not to get their hands dirty, but are taught at school that they can be anything they want to be including astronauts, engineers, technicians, etc. The girls that choose to be an astronaut or other science or math related careers get teased and made fun of by boys and other girls. Since the girls are getting teased, they will soon change their career path to stop getting bullied, but it is the teachers who help inspire these young girls to believe in themselves and do what they want to do. With all the teasing and bullying they recieve, girls lack self-confidence in their ability to perform well in math and science problems that they eventually will perform terrible in solving those problems. Schools should acknowledge the stereotype threat to all women so they can learn how to deal with all the negativity and not lose confidence when receiving negative feedback. The U.S. Department of Education has reported that girls “who have a strong self-concept regarding their abilities in math and science are more likely to choose and perform well in elective math and science courses and to select math and science- related college majors and careers” (Girls and Science: Why the Gender Gap Exists and What to do About it). Most middle-school girls tend to lose interest in math and science, and once those classes become

Classroom and department environments are particularly important sites of stereotype transmission because they are where many students are first exposed to topics like computer science. According to their research (Quinn) has found that high school students’ achievement in STEM predicts whether they will enter and persist in a STEM field in college and high school STEM achievement helps to explain racial gaps in STEM persistence in college. (Quinn, 2015) Stereotypes of the people in math-related fields are particularly harmful for women because they interfere with women’s sense of belonging in these fields and deter them from pursuing these fields and deter them from pursuing these fields. Sommer suggests that two genetically determined motivational differences between males and females might predispose the former to

My prior experience with working with youths contribute to my academic and career counseling theoretical orientation. As a school counselor intern, the population of students I have worked with are elementary and middle school students. Although academic is essential, I focus more on how a student’s behavior, attitude and decision-making impacts that student’s academic growth. Many middle school students are consumed with different social drama or blame the teachers for their declining grades. I facilitate in guiding the student’s thought process to allow them to see the roles they play in different scenarios. Eventually the student becomes aware about how their role affects their academic potential. In elementary, many students decision-making

In 2010 Good, J. J., Woodzicka, J. A., & Wingfield, L. C. investigated the effect of gender stereotypic and counter-stereotypic images on male and female high school students ' science comprehension and anxiety (Good, et al.). They predicted stereotypic images to induce stereotype threat in females and impair science performance (Good, et al.). Counter-stereotypic images were predicted to alleviate threat and enhance female performance (Good, et al.). Students read one of three chemistry lessons, each containing the same text, with photograph content varied according to stereotype condition (Good, et al.). Participants then completed a comprehension test and anxiety measure (Good, et al.). Results indicate that female students had higher comprehension after viewing counter-stereotypic images (female scientists) than after viewing stereotypic images (male scientists) (Good, et al.). Male students had higher comprehension after viewing stereotypic images than after viewing counter-stereotypic images. Implications for alleviating the gender gap in science achievement are discussed (Good, et al.).

It is becoming more and more common in recent years, for students to abandon traditional methods of education, citing that there is no need for such methods in a society that focuses heavily on technology. Society is focused on STEM careers, the latest buzzword in higher education. STEM careers are touted as the careers of the future, necessary for the advancement of the world and its infrastructure. And indeed that is the case, and the reason why STEM based careers are pushed onto students though early immersion programs and eager parents anxious to ensure the financial success of their children.

According to researchers, Morganson, Jones and Major, the “enrollment of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors is disproportionately small and declining” (Morganson, Jones, & Major, 2010, p.169). These researchers conducted a quantitative study to examine social coping with STEM to “explain the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields to provide guidance for career development professionals” (Morganson et al., 2010, p.171). For the methodology of this study, the researchers examined a large quantity of undergraduate students from different ethnic backgrounds (Morganson et al., 2010, p.172).Also for the study, “data was collected via an online survey from all students enrolled in the classes just described. Data collection was cross-sectional and spanned four semesters (Morganson et al., 2010, p.172).” As for measuring the study, the researchers measured social coping, commitment to the major, and course grades (Morganson et al., 2010, p.172). For the results, they proved that women benefited more from social coping then men (Morganson et al., 2010, p.169). Also, the findings indicate that in order to narrow the gender gap in STEM, school counselors need to know that there is a barrier in STEM centered careers and to positively counsel girls about STEM (Morganson et al., 2010, p.176). The article provided a plethora of information on how there’s a shortage of women in STEM, how social coping can aid more women into going into the field

Findings of the research give some implications for research on gender difference in major choice. Morgan et al. (2012) demonstrated that neither gender differences in work–family goals nor in academic preparation explain a substantial portion of gender differences while the occupational plans of high school seniors are strong predictors of initial college major selection. It was also found that the association between occupational plans and college major selection is not attributable to work–family orientation or academic preparation. On the other hand, Mann et al. (2012) found that none of the prominent explanations for the persisting gender gap in STEM fields related to mathematics performance and background and general life goals are

It is believed that the idea that women should not pursue STEM programs is silently placed into their heads from a very young age (1). Girls in elementary schools usually have male science and math teachers, which causes them to believe that those who participate or enjoy STEM studies are usually more masculine. A study was done and shows that girls who believe that math is strictly for men do not do as well in math as girls who do not see it from the same perspective (2). This makes it more difficult for a young girl to openly express that she enjoys STEM courses especially since as she progresses through school, the majority of the students in her science and math classes will be male (1). Based on observational studies done in math and science classrooms, it has been found that the