By Lucy Yeomans, Doctoral Researcher on the ASPIRES 2 Project

Campaigns to improve diversity in science have often focussed on gender, with the lack of women participating in Physics being an ongoing concern within science education policy and practice. The work of ASPIRES has certainly made contributions to these debates, but also advocates a more intersectional approach to understand gendered, classed and racialised inequalities in science fields. Prior attainment has often been raised as the most reliable determinant of future science participation, however even when attainment has been taken into account students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to pursue science pathways than their peers. The government’s recent concerns regarding white working-class underachievement in education as a whole begs the questions: are the white working-class an underrepresented group in science? If so, how can we make sense of why this might be? Is it because, as has been suggested in policy discourse, they suffer from a deficit of aspiration? Do they simply lack the academic attainment to enable their future success in science?

As a doctoral student working on the ASPIRES project my research aims to explore the sociocultural factors which may influence white working-class students’ future science participation. I am currently in the third year of my study, and having confirmed that white working-class students are indeed underrepresented in post-compulsory science fields, I have drawn on the ASPIRES longitudinal interview and survey data to investigate whether white working-class students are less likely to conceive science as being ‘for me’ and whether this is a consistent construct or something that changes over time.

As in the wider ASPIRES project, my analysis so far has led me to reject the ‘deficit aspiration’ discourse and move beyond the rationale of prior attainment as the sole important determinant of future science participation. I am currently exploring white working-class participants’ (now aged 18) histories of engagement in science outside of school both to determine their levels of ‘science capital’ and to see how they differ, or correspond, with students from different sociocultural backgrounds, including looking for differences in gender. The next step will be to look at participants’ aspirations in science and how they may change when students leave primary school and progress through secondary school.

Access to participants’ interviews dating from their final year of primary school through to their final year of compulsory education has provided unparalleled insight into the evolving values and dispositions of these white working-class students as they navigate various changes in themselves and their environments. Through this research I expect to provide some improved understanding of how the changes, and the differential strategies used by students of different sociocultural backgrounds to manage these changes, inform white working-class students’ non-choice of science. Widened access to higher level science subjects is important for citizens operating in an increasingly sophisticated technological world, while a diverse scientific workforce is important for economic prosperity and for reasons of social justice. I hope that my research will provide some useful and important new insights for policy and practice.

Lucy Yeomans, Doctoral Researcher on the ASPIRES 2 Project

Following the appointment of ASPIRES 2 director, Professor Louise Archer, to the Karl Mannheim Chair of Sociology of Education based in the Department of Education, Practice and Society at the UCL Institute of Education, the ASPIRES 2 project will be moving from King’s College London from 1st March.

Our longitudinal study, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, began with the ASPIRES project in 2009 at King’s College London’s School of Education, Communication (formerly the Department of Education and Professional Studies). Since 2009 our study into young people’s STEM and career aspirations has enabled us to track our cohort from primary, through secondary school and now, in our final round of data collection, at further education.

In the project’s eight years ASPIRES and ASPIRES 2 researchers have:

• tracked students’ aspirations from age 10 to age 18
• surveyed over 37,000 students
• conducted regular interviews with over 90 students
• spoken regularly with over 80 parents
• analysed over 600 hours of transcribed qualitative interviews
• visited schools across the country

Throughout the move our final round of fieldwork is ongoing, so look out for our emerging findings in the coming months.

We look forward to continuing our research at the IOE.

The ASPIRES 2 Team

Following a presentation by ASPIRES 2 Director Professor Louise Archer at Learning and Work’s Youth Employment Convention 2016 on 5th December, we wrote an article for the Skills, Employment and Health Journal.

The piece sets out our project findings in the context of social mobility, and how science has the potential to a powerful tool in promoting active citizenship. The key findings detailed are:

1. Lack of interest in science is not the problem

2. Careers provision is not reaching all students

3. Science Capital is key

4. Science is seen as only ‘for the brainy’ and ‘a man’s job’

Our recommendation is to change the system, not the students; we call for a review of both the stratification of science at KS4 and the longer-term desirability of A levels.

The full article can be found on the Skills, Employment and Health Journal’s website here .

— Emily MacLeod

The lack of gender diversity within science is well documented and well researched. Many have attempted to pinpoint the reasons for the lack of women participating in science, and/or generate methods to solve the sector’s lack of diversity. However, whilst there remains a great deal of focus on the subject of Women in Science, discussion is lacking when it comes to the role femininity plays within this.

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— Emily MacLeod

Despite many attempts to raise awareness of, and widen participation in, STEM subjects the lack of diversity in the field of Physics is a continuing concern for science educators and policy makers. Research shows that this may be due to multiple factors including the influence of teachers[i] and the prevailing view that Physics is seen by many as ‘for boys’[ii].

From our recent survey of 13,421 Year 11 students it is clear that female exclusion from Physics is a real trend; only 35% of the students interviewed intending to take Physics A level were female (in our relatively ‘science-focussed’ sample). Nationally, this percentage drops by over ten per cent.

In addition to surveying students, for our 10-year study into the science and career aspirations of young people we have conducted four rounds of interviews with a smaller cohort of students. In 2015 we conducted interviews with 70 of the students, now in Year 11 (age 15/16), and 62 of their parents, in which we asked about the under-representation of women in Physics in order to analyse whether, and why, people think that ‘Physics is for boys’.

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Last month we attended the book launch of our former colleague Dr. Billy Wong, who was a Research Associate on the first phase of our study. Billy now lectures in Education Studies at the University of Roehampton and has published in science education and sociology of education journals.

His book, Science Education, Career Aspirations and Minority Ethnic Students, builds on his work on both the ASPIRES and Enterprising Science projects at King’s College London by exploring the science career aspirations of minority ethnic students. It investigates the views, experiences and identities of British Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani youths in relation to science.

Order Billy’s book here.

Follow Billy on twitter.

— Emily MacLeod

Thank you to all members of our Advisory Board who attended this year’s meeting earlier this month. Members present were:

• Professor Louise Archer – ASPIRES 2
• Professor Derek Bell – College of Teachers
• Kate Bellingham – Women’s Engineering Society
• Dr. Jen DeWitt – ASPIRES 2
• Professor Becky Francis – ASPIRES 2 & Institute of Education, UCL
• Professor Sir John Holman – Wellcome Trust
• Emily MacLeod – ASPIRES 2
• Katherine Mathieson – British Science Association
• Dr. Rosalind Mist – The Royal Society
• Dr. Julie Moote – ASPIRES 2
• Nicole Morgan – Royal Society of Chemistry
• Karen Powell – Economic & Social Research Council
• Shaun Reason – The Association for Science Education
• Stephen Stanton – Department for Education
• Charles Tracy – Institute of Physics
• Lucy Yeomans – ASPIRES 2

During the meeting ASPIRES 2 researchers summarised the findings from our Year 11 data collection, and set out plans for the project’s Year 13 data collection starting this autumn. Advisory Board members discussed the importance and influence of the research and used their own experience and expertise to feed into plans for the project’s final data collection cycle. Further discussions centred around how the project’s findings, particularly around age and gender, are supported by findings from across the education research and science education sectors.

The meeting ended with a focus on impact; Board members reported how ASPIRES/2 findings have impacted on their own work, and discussed how it can continue to do so in a meaningful way.

 To find out more about our research, or how we work with our Advisory Board members, please contact us.

— Emily MacLeod

In May, ASPIRES 2 researchers Professor Louise Archer and Dr. Julie Moote submitted evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into science communication. The purpose of the inquiry was to investigate how the Government, scientists, the media and others encourage and facilitate public awareness of, and engagement in, science. Following the submission Professor Louise Archer gave oral evidence to the Committee at the Natural History Museum on 14^th June.

The evidence submitted used findings from ASPIRES 2’s national survey of over 13,000 15-16 year olds, and focussed on the science communication strategies being taken to encourage young people to study STEM subjects post-16 and to encourage those young people into STEM careers. We recommended that science communication efforts must work to diversify the image of ‘who does science’, and showcase science qualifications and skills as useful for a wide variety of careers.

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60% of young people aspire to work in business, but only 15% aspire to be a scientist (ASPIRES).

Not enough young people are choosing to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) after the age of 16. There is also widespread concern that the profile of those who do go on to pursue STEM subjects and careers is too narrow – with women, working-class and some minority ethnic groups remaining under-represented.

ASPIRES 2, based at King’s College London, is the second phase of a ten-year study into the science, STEM and career aspirations of young people aged 10-18. Our longitudinal data, tracking students from primary school to further education, is helping us to understand the changing influences on young people’s science and career aspirations, and has a strong bearing on educational policy and practice – especially concerning the widening STEM skills gap and diversifying the STEM workforce.

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— Emily MacLeod

When the 2006 GCSE reforms introduced the entitlement to take Triple Science from 2008, it was hoped that this widely praised three-qualification route would go some way to addressing the country’s STEM skills gap. But following the data collected from our national survey of over 13,000 Year 11 students, in addition to our longitudinal interviews with 70 of these students, researchers at ASPIRES 2 are questioning whether the Triple Science route really is serving society’s STEM needs. Emergent findings suggest:

1. Socially disadvantaged students are less likely to study Triple Science – In our study, the most socially disadvantaged students were two and a half times less likely to study Triple Science compared to the most advantaged. We also found that students in middle and bottom sets were much less likely to study Triple Science than their peers in top sets.
2. Students don’t choose their KS4 science options – their schools do – Despite the notion of ‘choice’ surrounding the GCSE selection process, 61% of the students surveyed taking Triple Science had this decided for them. What’s more, many of the remaining students indicated that they had been steered into taking a particular choice by their school.
3. Students think that Triple Science is only for the ‘clever’ kids – Triple Science was overwhelmingly seen as the route for those who are ‘clever’ and ‘sciency’, both by those taking it and those taking alternative options. Our interviews showed that this left Double Science and Science BTEC students feeling inferior, especially in schools which  threaten to ‘bump down’ Triple Science students to Double Science if they fail to achieve the top grades.

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