Following in Their Footsteps: The Relationship between Parent STEM Occupation and Student STEM Coursetaking in High School

Encouraging persistence, success, and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields of study continues to be a point of emphasis across the United States. While there does exist a body of research exploring STEM education and STEM learning, less is understood about the informal factors that may encourage STEM pursuit. In particular, parents can play a critical role in influencing their children to pursue STEM. High school is a key period in the development and promotion of science capital. Therefore, we explore how parent employment in STEM occupations relates to student decisions to participate in both applied and academic STEM coursework in high school. We find that parent STEM occupation does matter, and that the impact is linked to the number of parents in a STEM occupation as well as income level of the family. Our findings provide evidence for the growing theory focusing on the growth of science capital among individuals and how this form of capital may be passed from parent to child. Policy and practice implications are discussed.