Science capital or STEM capital? Exploring relationships between science capital and technology,engineering, and maths aspirations and attitudes among young people aged 17/18

We previously proposed that science capital (science-related forms of cultural and social capital) can be used as a theoretical lens for explaining the patterned nature of aspirations and educational participation among young people aged 11–16. Building on these findings, the present article investigates whether science capital is related to post-18 aspirations to pursue further STEM study and whether science capital can be extended to related disciplines including engineering, maths and technology. Specifically, we report on correlational analyses exploring the relationships between science, technology, engineering and maths attitudes and science capital. Drawing on data from a new survey of 7,013 17/18 year old English secondary school students, analyses showed that science capital, while strongly related to engineering and physical science future study aspirations, was not strongly related to the pursuit of either maths or technology postsecondary study. The findings also suggest that engineering and maths attitudes have a stronger relationship to science capital than attitudes relating to technology. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings and propose that science capital might be more usefully applied to “SEM,” with links to technology fields and aspirations needing further exploration.     

Lifelong learning and becoming a mother: evaluation of the Young Parents Program

The purpose of this research was to identify how lifelong learning has the potential to accommodate the changed circumstances and future needs of women who become mothers as teenagers. The research drew on the previously separate theories of lifelong learning and becoming a mother to frame this initial study. A qualitative case study was used to evaluate the Young Parents Program, which was devised to meet the informal learning needs of young mothers aged between 15 and 25 years. A total of eight mothers completed a survey and four of them also participated in a focus group interview to provide more in depth responses. The results indicate that the content of the programme provided relevant information that met the informal learning needs of the participants. The delivery of the programme helped participants to make connections with other young mothers in similar circumstances. The findings imply that informal learning programmes that respond well to the immediate needs of young mothers have the potential to prevent young mothers from becoming socially isolated. Young mothers who become engrossed in their own problems without access to relevant informal learning may fail to undertake formal learning opportunities that might be available in the future.     

Children’s Reading Comprehension and Oral Reading Fluency in Easy Text

This study explored third-graders’ oral reading fluency (ORF) in easy text in relation to their third- and fourth-grade reading comprehension. It also examined the children’s performance on two different measures of text exposure, a self-report questionnaire and a title-recognition test. Although third-graders’ ORF related significantly to their reading comprehension, oral language comprehension accounted for most of the variance in reading comprehension, whereas single word reading speed accounted for most of the variance in ORF. Third-grade reading comprehension and ORF each predicted unique variance in children’s scores on a fourth-grade state-mandated reading comprehension assessment. Scores on the self-report questionnaire correlated significantly with third-grade ORF and fourth-grade reading; the self-report accounted for reliable variance in ORF even with all of the other reading ability variables entered first. Results are consistent with the viewpoint that text exposure affects reading fluency. They also demonstrate that ORF is a valuable predictor of middle-elementary children’s reading comprehension, even when the ORF measure employs very easy text in which children achieve near-perfect word accuracy.