TY - JOUR

T1 - Misfits or misrecognition? Exploring STEMM degree students' concerns about non-completion

AU - Archer, Louise

AU - Godec, Spela

AU - Holmegaard, Henriette Tolstrup

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Science Education published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Reducing rates of degree non-completion and widening participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are key international policy concerns. This paper analyzes open-ended response survey data from 1886 degree students in England, focusing on the 27% (n = 136/501) STEM and high-status medicine (STEMM) degree students and 26% (n = 367/1385) non-STEMM students who expressed concerns that they might not complete their degree. Insights are supplemented with two illustrative longitudinal case studies of young women, interviewed from age 10 to 21, who withdrew from their respective STEM degree courses. Around a quarter of both STEMM and non-STEMM students expressed concerns that they might not complete and reported similar types of concern, with academic concerns being of prime importance—but particularly so among STEMM students. The percentage of students expressing concerns varied between STEMM disciplines (from 18% of maths students to 37% of computing students) and by student demographics, with women, racially minoritized, and students from less affluent backgrounds appearing most likely to worry that they might not complete. A Bourdieusian lens is employed to interpret patterns in the findings, challenging human capital explanations of non-completion as due to individual student deficit (“misfits”) with a sociostructural interpretation (“misrecognition”) that draws attention to the role of capital and symbolic violence in shaping differential risks of non-completion. Calls are made for the value of understanding STEMM student non-completion as a structural issue, not just individual “unprepared” students who do not “fit” their degree.

AB - Reducing rates of degree non-completion and widening participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are key international policy concerns. This paper analyzes open-ended response survey data from 1886 degree students in England, focusing on the 27% (n = 136/501) STEM and high-status medicine (STEMM) degree students and 26% (n = 367/1385) non-STEMM students who expressed concerns that they might not complete their degree. Insights are supplemented with two illustrative longitudinal case studies of young women, interviewed from age 10 to 21, who withdrew from their respective STEM degree courses. Around a quarter of both STEMM and non-STEMM students expressed concerns that they might not complete and reported similar types of concern, with academic concerns being of prime importance—but particularly so among STEMM students. The percentage of students expressing concerns varied between STEMM disciplines (from 18% of maths students to 37% of computing students) and by student demographics, with women, racially minoritized, and students from less affluent backgrounds appearing most likely to worry that they might not complete. A Bourdieusian lens is employed to interpret patterns in the findings, challenging human capital explanations of non-completion as due to individual student deficit (“misfits”) with a sociostructural interpretation (“misrecognition”) that draws attention to the role of capital and symbolic violence in shaping differential risks of non-completion. Calls are made for the value of understanding STEMM student non-completion as a structural issue, not just individual “unprepared” students who do not “fit” their degree.

KW - Bourdieu

KW - non-completion

KW - qualitative

KW - STEM

KW - students

U2 - 10.1002/sce.21794

DO - 10.1002/sce.21794

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85151432309

VL - 107

SP - 912

EP - 938

JO - Science Education

JF - Science Education

SN - 0036-8326

IS - 4

ER -