Emily MacLeod

In the context of severe and worsening science teacher shortages in many countries and a body of literature reliant on retrospective accounts from those already teaching science, this paper explores the views and assumptions held about school science teaching by potential future science teachers. Using a theoretical lens informed by the concept of ‘figured worlds’, this paper presents analyses of qualitative data collected in the UK and Canada via longitudinal and life history methods to examine what science majors assume to be true about science teaching, and what influences shape these assumptions. Analyses demonstrate that the world of science teaching is distinct, and even isolated, from the world of science according to potential future science teachers. These data evidence contrasting epistemologies between the worlds of science teaching and science, and indicate that those who have worked to conduct their identities in line with science may struggle to develop identities within, or towards, the figured world of science teaching. We end this paper with a discussion of the implications of these findings in relation to ongoing science teacher shortages.

This paper uses empirical data from a longitudinal qualitative study conducted with aspirant teachers in England to propose (re)definitions of the concepts of ‘status’ and ‘safety’ as a framework with which to understand and improve teacher recruitment. These (re)definitions develop from analyses of data tracking 13 aspirant teachers throughout their education from age 10 and into their first career at age 22. Analyses using an identity lens demonstrate that teaching was constructed as a profession which afforded both respect (status) and minimal risk (safety) by all aspirant teachers in this study. These constructions, however, were relative and transitory; and were strongly shaped by participants' ages as well as the social inequities they experienced. Those who chose to pursue teaching by age 22 maintained or returned to their constructions of teaching as both high in status and safety. These findings suggest that the reasons why some people do not become teachers are not the same reasons why people report leaving teaching. The paper ends with recommendations for how to increase our focus on status and safety in future research and practice, as well as a call for future research to involve aspirant teachers.

Against a backdrop of severe and long-standing teacher shortages, in this paper we present analyses of over 60,000 survey responses collected via a cross-sectional cohort study that sampled young people in England over a period of 11 years; at ages 10/11, 12/13, 13/14, 15/16, 17/18, and 21/22. These methods allow us to explore how common teaching aspirations are amongst young people at different ages, and who aspires to become a teacher as a future career. Analysing both free-text and Likert-scale data, we find that many more young people express an interest in becoming a teacher than is reflected in teacher recruitment data, and that teaching aspirations are patterned by gender and ethnicity. Girls and young women, as well as young people who identified as White, were significantly more likely to be open to teaching than their peers. Our findings suggest that teaching is a common back-up, or second-choice career aspiration, and that many individuals who report an earlier interest in teaching do not go on to become teachers. We end the paper with reflections on how these findings might be used to increase and diversify teacher recruitment, as well as recommendations for future research.

Teacher shortages are not only severe and long term, but are strongly patterned by social inequities. In many Western countries the teaching workforce is dominated by White women, yet there is a lack of consideration as to why these patterns persist. This paper presents the first longitudinal exploration of young people's trajectories into teaching. It uses data from 31 interviews to examine the educational experiences and career aspirations of three young White women over 11 years: from primary school, through secondary school, further and higher education, and into initial teacher education. Analysing these data with an intersectional identity lens reveals how, despite each participant encountering significant obstacles on their pathway into teaching, once they were in teacher education all three participants narrated teaching as their ‘vocation’. An exploration of why these White women implied that they were ‘meant’ to teach is presented, along with consideration of how the discourse that teaching is a vocation may discourage those who do not feel that it applies to them. The paper ends with evidence‐informed recommendations for those working to improve teacher recruitment in research and policy.

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.

Background: There is widespread agreement that participation in post-compulsory physics needs to be widened and increased, particularly among women and under-represented communities. This paper contributes to understanding of the processes that produce unequal participation, Methods: The paper undertakes a Bourdieusian analysis of longitudinal interview data from 75 interviews conducted with fifteen students, tracked from age 10-18, who studied Advanced level physics in England. Findings: The paper discusses evidence of a physics habitus that was strongly aligned with notions of intelligence/ cleverness and masculinity and identifies how young women were particularly disadvantaged by a popular notion of the “effortlessly clever physicist”, which encouraged even highly interested and high attaining young women not to continue further with the subject. We identified three main forms of pedagogic work performed by school physics (attainment-based practices of debarring and gatekeeping; curriculum practices of deferring ‘real’ physics and physics ‘lies’; and interpersonal reinforcement of doxa), which helped cultivate student habitus over time and produce inequitable patterns of participation Contribution: Analyses show that school physics contributes to reproducing inequitable (and low overall) patterns of participation. Implications are discussed for science education policy and practice to support more equitable participation.

Background: Women (along with minority ethnic and low‐income communities) remain underrepresented in engineering, despite a 30‐year history of research and equality legislation. Compared with the United States and other European Union countries, this underrepresentation is particularly pronounced in the United Kingdom. While existing literature gives insights into factors shaping retention and progression in university engineering students, comparatively less is known about the development of primary and secondary school students' engineering aspirations.Purpose: This paper contrasts science and engineering analyses to explore how relationships between background and attitudinal factors and aspirations change across primary and secondary schools. We examine the relative influence of gender on aspirations in both science and engineering.Design/Method: We drew on survey data from more than 20,000 English students from the ASPIRES projects. A multilevel regression approach is implemented to test for the effects of gender, ethnicity, and cultural capital on science and engineering aspirations.Results: Gender is the main factor related to engineering aspirations, while science aspirations are influenced by a broader range of factors. School‐level factors become increasingly important for engineering aspirations. We also report evidence of the early distinctiveness of young women who aspire to engineering in terms of their relatively high self‐concept and motivations.Conclusions: The association of engineering with masculinity is evident in aspirations from age 10, and students aspiring to engineering are distinctive in several respects. Efforts aimed at improving participation in engineering might more usefully focus on challenging the elitist culture and practices, which may influence student perceptions, rather than focusing on changing student aspirations directly.