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Does Reading Historical Drama Increase Historical Knowledge And Empathy? The Case Of Dorothy Sayers’S The Man Born To Be King, Albert Cheng
Does Reading Historical Drama Increase Historical Knowledge And Empathy? The Case Of Dorothy Sayers’S The Man Born To Be King, Albert Cheng
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Literary theorists have argued that literary reading fosters empathy, a claim that has substantial empirical support. In this study, I consider the more specific case of reading historical drama and its potential to foster historical empathy among secondary school students. Although several educational interventions for fostering historical empathy have been proposed, none have yet considered the potential of reading historical drama. I evaluate an intervention where students engaged with selected plays from Dorothy Sayers’s The Man Born to be King that depict the Nativity and Easter narratives. After the intervention, I find that these students, compared to students who did …
Teacher Turnover During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro, Josh B. Mcgee
Teacher Turnover During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Teachers' levels of stress and burnout have been high throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, raising concerns about a potential increase in teacher turnover and future teacher shortages. We examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected teacher turnover in Arkansas from 2018-19 to 2022-23 using administrative data. We find no major changes in turnover entering the first two pandemic years, but a large increase of 5.3 percentage points (26%) entering the third year, with variation by teacher and student characteristics. We also find that increases in teacher turnover are related to instructional mode and that this turnover may partially be explained by the …
A Glimpse Into Arkansas Teachers’ Grading Practices, Sarah Morris, Sarah C. Mckenzie
A Glimpse Into Arkansas Teachers’ Grading Practices, Sarah Morris, Sarah C. Mckenzie
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
This case study assesses the current, self-reported grading practices among Arkansas teachers. We distributed a Teachers’ Grading Perceptions survey in November, 2022, and we conducted semi-structured interviews with teachers and principals in January-February, 2023. We gathered both quantitative and qualitative data from the teacher survey, and we used interviews to collect themes for current grading practices in Arkansas’s schools. We generated a grading equity scale from the survey questions, verified by a reliable alpha coefficient = 0.83, and we use this in a multivariate regression to explore teacher characteristics and their likelihood of favoring grading equity practices. We collected themes …
Movers, Switchers, And Exiters: Teacher Turnover During Covid-19, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro, Josh B. Mcgee
Movers, Switchers, And Exiters: Teacher Turnover During Covid-19, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
In this brief, we examine teacher turnover in the state of Arkansas both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with available reports from Washington State, North Carolina, and South Carolina, we find evidence of increased teacher turnover in Arkansas entering the current school year. However, a large proportion of this turnover can be explained not by teachers leaving the education sector but switching to non-instructional roles such as principals or instructional coaches. The use of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds may be driving these transitions. A survey of schools conducted by the National Center for …
Revisiting Ethnic Differences In In-Person Learning During 2021-2022, Andrew Camp, Alison H. Johnson, Gema Zamarro
Revisiting Ethnic Differences In In-Person Learning During 2021-2022, Andrew Camp, Alison H. Johnson, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
During the 2020-21 school year, Black and Hispanic students were less likely to attend school in-person than white students. Prior research indicated multiple factors helped explain this gap. In this study, we revise these observed racial gaps in in-person learning to examine whether the relationship between these gaps and explanatory factors observed earlier in the pandemic changed during the 2021-2022 school year. We find that, while in-person gaps decreased, Black respondents continued to be less likely to report in-person learning than white respondents. Political leanings and COVID-19 health risks, which helped explain observed gaps in 2020-2021, lose explanatory power. But …
Revisiting Ethnic Differences In In-Person Learning During 2021-2022, Alison Heape, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro
Revisiting Ethnic Differences In In-Person Learning During 2021-2022, Alison Heape, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools throughout the United States, forcing a shift to remote learning that lasted the rest of the academic year. In the fall of 2020, schools reopened using combinations of in-person, hybrid, and remote learning models with great geographic variability in access to in-person learning. A growing body of research shows important racial differences in the use of in-person learning during the 2020-2021 school year, with Black and Hispanic students returning to in-person learning at lower rates than white students (Camp and Zamarro, 2021; Kurmann and Lalé, 2022). This in-person learning gap …
Does The Timing Of Money Matter? A Case Study Of The Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship, Jessica Goldstein, Jonathan N. Mills, Albert Cheng, Collin E. Hitt
Does The Timing Of Money Matter? A Case Study Of The Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship, Jessica Goldstein, Jonathan N. Mills, Albert Cheng, Collin E. Hitt
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
This paper examines the effect of a state-financed merit-aid scholarship—the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship (ACS)—on post-secondary outcomes at a large university in Arkansas. Exploiting scholarship eligibility requirements, we implement a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to identify the scholarship’s causal impacts on college outcomes. The analysis focuses on currently enrolled sophomores, juniors, and seniors who receive the scholarship to investigate the broad impacts of receiving money at nontraditional points in an individual’s college trajectory. Findings indicate small, negative impacts of scholarship receipt on short-run outcomes such as GPA and credit accumulation, but large statistically significant declines in the likelihood of graduating …
Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter, Which Don’T, And Why Don’T Most Social Scientists Care?, Robert Anthony Maranto, Wilfred Reilly, Patrick Wolf, Mattie Harris
Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter, Which Don’T, And Why Don’T Most Social Scientists Care?, Robert Anthony Maranto, Wilfred Reilly, Patrick Wolf, Mattie Harris
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
In part via skillful use of social media, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has become among the most influential social movements of the past half century, with support across racial lines, and considerable financial backing (Fisher, 2019). Will this translate into public policy reforms which save Black lives? After all, higher education is a key institutional backer of BLM, and a considerable literature dating back decades (e.g., Lindblom & Cohen, 1979) casts doubt on the effectiveness of social science in solving social problems, for numerous reasons. Often, the best social science is simple counting. This paper makes two unique contributions. First, …
The Role Of Poetry In Cultivating Attentiveness, Curiosity, And Affinity In The Science Classroom, Albert Cheng, Rian Djita
The Role Of Poetry In Cultivating Attentiveness, Curiosity, And Affinity In The Science Classroom, Albert Cheng, Rian Djita
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Poetry is endemic to classical education and often studied for its own sake. However, poetry is also posited to possess a pedagogical power not shared by prose or formal scientific language. Poetry’s distinctive effects on learning outcomes have been well articulated by philosophers since Plato and Aristotle, but their claims have not been subjected to an empirical test. We fill that gap in this study. We collaborated with a local classical grammar school and divided kindergarten, first grade, and second grade classrooms into two groups for a two-week science unit. One group of classrooms integrated poems about the topic of …
Understanding How Covid-19 Has Changed Teachers’ Chances Of Remaining In The Classroom, Gema Zamarro, Andrew Camp, Dillon Fuchsman, Josh B. Mcgee
Understanding How Covid-19 Has Changed Teachers’ Chances Of Remaining In The Classroom, Gema Zamarro, Andrew Camp, Dillon Fuchsman, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The 2020-2021 academic year was a trying year for teachers. We use a nationally representative sample of teachers from the RAND American Teacher Panel to document that teachers’ stated consideration of leaving the profession increased during the pandemic. We also study factors associated with teachers’ consideration of leaving the profession and high levels of job burnout during the pandemic. Approaching retirement age (being 55 or older), having to change instruction modes, health concerns, and high levels of job burnout all appear to be important predictors of the probability of considering leaving or retiring from teaching. Hybrid teaching increased consideration of …
Teachers’ Knowledge About And Preparedness For Retirement: Results From A Nationally Representative Teacher Survey, Dillon Fuchsman, Josh B. Mcgee, Gema Zamarro
Teachers’ Knowledge About And Preparedness For Retirement: Results From A Nationally Representative Teacher Survey, Dillon Fuchsman, Josh B. Mcgee, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Adequately saving for retirement requires both planning and knowledge about available retirement savings options. Teachers participate in a complex set of different plan designs and benefit tiers, and many do not participate in Social Security. While teachers represent a large part of the public workforce, relatively little is known regarding their knowledge about and preparation for retirement. We administered a survey to a nationally representative sample of teachers through RAND’s American Teacher Panel and asked teachers about their retirement planning and their employer-sponsored retirement plans. We find that while most teachers are taking steps to prepare for retirement, many teachers …
Contemporary Homeschooling Arrangements: An Analysis Of Three Waves Of Nationally Representative Data, Albert Cheng, Daniel Hamlin
Contemporary Homeschooling Arrangements: An Analysis Of Three Waves Of Nationally Representative Data, Albert Cheng, Daniel Hamlin
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Homeschooling has increased dramatically in recent decades. During this period of expansion, scholars have reported on growing diversity in the ways that homeschool families educate their children. However, research tends to treat homeschooled children as a uniform group without accounting for differing homeschool arrangements. In this study, we examine the prevalence of four types of homeschool arrangements reported in prior literature as follows: (1) home education supplemented by the use of a private tutor or a homeschool cooperative, (2) home education supplemented by the use of online learning, (3) home education supplemented by part-time enrollment in a brick-and-mortar school, and …
The Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On First-Generation, Low-Income And Rural Students In Indonesia And Vietnam: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study, Rian Djita, Bich Thi Ngoc Tran, Nguyet Thi Minh Nguyen, Budi Wibawanta
The Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On First-Generation, Low-Income And Rural Students In Indonesia And Vietnam: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study, Rian Djita, Bich Thi Ngoc Tran, Nguyet Thi Minh Nguyen, Budi Wibawanta
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact worldwide, affecting 600 million students in higher education institutions across 200 countries. However, comparative studies by country on this topic are limited. In this paper, we explore the question: how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected higher education students and which ones have been impacted the most? Indonesia and Vietnam are our focus. We leveraged a rich set of data collected online from college/university students from both countries involving over 2600 participants, and used regression analyses to measure the students' outcomes, including the dimensions of their wellbeing, financial hardships, access to technology, and …
Understanding How Covid-19 Has Changed Teachers’ Chances Of Remaining In The Classroom, Gema Zamarro, Andrew Camp, Dillon Fuchsman, Josh B. Mcgee
Understanding How Covid-19 Has Changed Teachers’ Chances Of Remaining In The Classroom, Gema Zamarro, Andrew Camp, Dillon Fuchsman, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The 2020-2021 academic year was a year like no other. After nationwide school closures during the spring of 2020, schools reopened in the fall of 2020 using combinations of in-person, hybrid, and remote learning models. Teachers had to adapt to unexpected conditions, teaching in unprecedented ways, using synchronous and asynchronous instruction, while also being challenged to establish connections with students, families, and colleagues. Health concerns added to the mix as some teachers went back to in-person education during the height of the pandemic. As a result, teachers' levels of stress and burnout have been high throughout these unusual pandemic times …
Homeschooling, Social Isolation, And Life Trajectories: An Analysis Of Formerly Homeschooled Adults, Daniel Hamlin, Albert Cheng
Homeschooling, Social Isolation, And Life Trajectories: An Analysis Of Formerly Homeschooled Adults, Daniel Hamlin, Albert Cheng
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
A longstanding critique of homeschooling is that it isolates children from mainstream society, depriving them of social experiences needed to thrive as adults. Although a small number of empirical studies challenge this criticism, this research tends to be derived from self-reports of homeschooling parents about their children. In this study, analyses of qualitative interviews (n = 31) and survey data (n = 140) of adults who were homeschooled as children are performed. Most interview participants described conventional and unconventional social experiences that they felt had satisfied their social needs while being homeschooled. Participants who were homeschooled for all or most …
Volunteering And Charitable Giving Among Australian Young Adults And The Mediating Role Of Community Service Emphasis In Secondary Schools, Albert Cheng, Rian R. Djita
Volunteering And Charitable Giving Among Australian Young Adults And The Mediating Role Of Community Service Emphasis In Secondary Schools, Albert Cheng, Rian R. Djita
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Schools play a vital role in sustaining civil society by tending to the civic formation of their students. Prior research has focused on assessing students on a variety of civic outcomes including volunteering and charitable giving, and often compares students in Government, religious Independent, and non-religious Independent schools. However, this work has mostly been conducted in North American contexts. Nor has much attention been given to developing theory and then empirically testing mediating variables that explain any observed differences across these schooling sectors. We fill these gaps in this study. Using a nationally representative sample of 4,000 Australian adults, we …
The Value Of College Athletics In The Labor Market: Results From A Resume Audit Field Experiment, James D. Paul, Albert Cheng, Jay P. Greene, Josh B. Mcgee
The Value Of College Athletics In The Labor Market: Results From A Resume Audit Field Experiment, James D. Paul, Albert Cheng, Jay P. Greene, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Employers may favor applicants who played college sports if athletics participation contributes to leadership, conscientiousness, discipline, and other traits that are desirable for labor-market productivity. We conduct a resume audit to estimate the causal effect of listing collegiate athletics on employer callbacks and test for subgroup effects by ethnicity, gender, and sport type. We applied to more than 450 jobs on a large, well-known job board. For each job listing we submitted two fictitious resumes, one of which was randomly assigned to include collegiate varsity athletics. Overall, listing a college sport does not produce a statistically significant change in the …
Charter School Closing Inequities: Do Automatic Closure Laws Target Black Charter Entrepreneurs And Black Students?, Ian Kingbury, Martha Bradley-Dorsey, Robert Maranto
Charter School Closing Inequities: Do Automatic Closure Laws Target Black Charter Entrepreneurs And Black Students?, Ian Kingbury, Martha Bradley-Dorsey, Robert Maranto
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Charter schools can have their charters rescinded if they fail to meet performance metrics, which are often specified in the charter. In some states, however, charters must meet inflexible, standardized performance standards to survive. Through the lens of public choice theory, we hypothesize that charters that were established by African Americans and those which serve more African American students are more likely to close, and that state-imposed standardized closure rules exacerbate these inequities. Analyses using charter petitions (n=925) and National Center for Education Statistics data since 2010 (n=5,548), tend to confirm hypotheses: The percentage of African American students and having …
Understanding Performance In Test Taking: The Role Of Question Difficulty Order, Lina Anaya, Nagore Iriberri, Pedro Rey-Biel, Gema Zamarro
Understanding Performance In Test Taking: The Role Of Question Difficulty Order, Lina Anaya, Nagore Iriberri, Pedro Rey-Biel, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Standardized assessments are widely used to determine access to educational resources with important consequences for later economic outcomes in life. However, many design features of the tests themselves may lead to psychological reactions influencing performance. In particular, the level of difficulty of the earlier questions in a test may affect performance in later questions. How should we order test questions according to their level of difficulty such that test performance offers an accurate assessment of the test taker's aptitudes and knowledge? We conduct a field experiment with about 19,000 participants in collaboration with an online teaching platform where we randomly …
Determinants Of Ethnic Differences In School Modality Choices During The Covid-19 Crisis, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro
Determinants Of Ethnic Differences In School Modality Choices During The Covid-19 Crisis, Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
A growing body of research and popular reporting shows racial differences in school modality choices during the COVID-19 crisis, with white students more likely to attend school in person. This in-person learning gap raises serious equity concerns. We use unique panel survey data to explore possible explanations. We find that a combination of factors may explain these differences. School districts’ offerings, political partisanship, and local COVID-19 outbreaks are all meaningfully associated with and plausibly explain the in-person learning racial gap. As schools start offering more in-person learning, significant efforts may be necessary to ensure that families and students attend those …
Did Spending Cuts During The Great Recession Really Cause Student Outcomes To Decline?, Jessica Goldstein, Josh B. Mcgee
Did Spending Cuts During The Great Recession Really Cause Student Outcomes To Decline?, Jessica Goldstein, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Jackson, Wigger, and Xiong (2020a, JWX) provide evidence that education spending reductions following the Great Recession had widespread negative impacts on student achievement and attainment. This paper describes our process of duplicating JWX and highlights a variety of tests we employ to investigate the nature and robustness of the relationship between school spending reductions and student outcomes. Though per-pupil expenditures undoubtedly shifted downward due to the Great Recession, contrary to JWX, our findings indicate there is not a clear and compelling story about the impact of those reductions on student achievement. Moreover, we find that the relationship between K-12 spending …
Education And Anti-Semitism, Jay. P. Greene, Albert Cheng, Ian Kingsbury
Education And Anti-Semitism, Jay. P. Greene, Albert Cheng, Ian Kingsbury
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Many people believe that intolerance, in general, and anti-Semitism, in particular, are a function of ignorance, and the solution is education. We see evidence of this whenever concerns about intolerance or anti-Semitism become more salient. Proposed solutions frequently feature improved Holocaust education or expanded diversity, equity, and inclusion training. As two religious leaders recently urged, “The only thing that will truly halt the rise of anti-Semitism in America is education” (Stanton & Marcus, 2019). Profiles of anti-Semites tend to feature rural whites or urban minorities, but they are almost always from low-educational backgrounds. Well-educated people tend to feel secure in …
An Experimental Evaluation Of Arts Field Trips, Heidi H. Erickson, Angela R. Watson, Jay P. Greene
An Experimental Evaluation Of Arts Field Trips, Heidi H. Erickson, Angela R. Watson, Jay P. Greene
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
This paper presents results of a multi-visit, longitudinal experiment on the academic and social-emotional effects of arts-based field trips. We randomly assign fourth and fifth grade students to receive arts-based field trips throughout the school year or to serve as a control. Treatment students express greater tolerance for people with different opinions and a desire to consume arts. Additionally, treatment students have fewer behavioral infractions, attend school more frequently, score higher on their end-of-grade exams, and receive higher course grades. Effects are strongest when students enter middle school. We find no effect on students’ desire to participate in the arts, …
The Role Of Student Effort On Performance In Pisa: Revisiting The Gender Gap In Achievement, Lina Anaya, Gema Zamarro
The Role Of Student Effort On Performance In Pisa: Revisiting The Gender Gap In Achievement, Lina Anaya, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
International assessments are important to benchmark the quality of education across countries. However, on low-stakes tests, students’ incentives to invest their maximum effort may be minimal. Research stresses that ignoring students’ effort when interpreting results from low-stakes assessments can lead to biased interpretations of test performance across groups of examinees. We use data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a low-stakes test, to analyze the extent to which student effort helps to explain test scores heterogeneity across countries and by gender groups. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for differences in student effort to understand cross-country heterogeneity …
The Value Of Study Abroad Experience In The Labor Market: Findings From A Resume Audit Experiment, Albert Cheng, Laura Florick
The Value Of Study Abroad Experience In The Labor Market: Findings From A Resume Audit Experiment, Albert Cheng, Laura Florick
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Conventional wisdom and some empirical research suggests that study abroad programs enhance skills and personal growth in ways that translate into success in the labor market. However, this research is limited by its inability to address sources of selection bias that may confound the positive relationship between study abroad experience and labor-market success. We conduct a field experiment to overcome these limitations. Using a resume audit, we estimate the causal relationship between participation in study abroad experience and the likelihood of receiving a callback from a potential employer. We also tested for potential heterogeneities by the location (i.e., Asia versus …
Testing, Teacher Turnover And The Distribution Of Teachers Across Grades And Schools, Dillon Fuchsman, Tim R. Sass, Gema Zamarro
Testing, Teacher Turnover And The Distribution Of Teachers Across Grades And Schools, Dillon Fuchsman, Tim R. Sass, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Teacher turnover has adverse consequences for student achievement and imposes large financial costs for schools. Some have argued that high-stakes testing may lower teachers’ satisfaction with their jobs and could be a major contributor to teacher attrition. In this paper, we exploit changes in the tested grades and subjects in Georgia to study the effects of eliminating high-stakes testing on teacher turnover and the distribution of teachers across grades and schools. To measure the effect of testing pressures on teacher mobility choices we use a "difference-in-differences" approach, comparing changes in mobility over time in grades/subjects that discontinue testing vis-à-vis grades/subjects …
Assessing Christian Learning: Vocation, Practices, And Investment, David Smith, Mia Kurkechian, Beth Green, Albert Cheng
Assessing Christian Learning: Vocation, Practices, And Investment, David Smith, Mia Kurkechian, Beth Green, Albert Cheng
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
This paper describes a new initiative co-funded by the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin University and Cardus. The initiative builds upon past Cardus work on assessing Christian school outcomes as well as the Kuyers Institute’s work on Christian pedagogical practices. The project has developed a new online assessment tool to help Christian secondary schools assess the Christian formation that they seek to offer their students and review their own educational practices. This tool, the Practicing Faith Survey, will be piloted in an initial cluster of schools in 2020. It asks students to self-report on their investment …
The Development And Validation Of The Practicing Faith Survey, Albert Cheng, Beth Green, David Smith
The Development And Validation Of The Practicing Faith Survey, Albert Cheng, Beth Green, David Smith
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The Practicing Faith Survey (PFS) is a new assessment tool designed to measure the extent to which schoolchildren connect their faith to learning. PFS measures student engagement with five domains of Christian practice in connection with learning: intellectual, relational, introspective, benevolence, and formational practices. We describe the item-development process and then present evidence for the validity and reliability of the PFS based on a sample of 1,300 fifth- through twelfth-grade students who participated in a pilot of the instrument.
Can Information Widen Socioeconomic Gaps In Postsecondary Aspirations? How College Costs And Returns Affect Parents’ Preferences For Their Children, Albert Cheng, Michael Henderson, Paul E. Peterson, Martin R. West
Can Information Widen Socioeconomic Gaps In Postsecondary Aspirations? How College Costs And Returns Affect Parents’ Preferences For Their Children, Albert Cheng, Michael Henderson, Paul E. Peterson, Martin R. West
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
To estimate whether information can close socioeconomic gaps in parents’ aspirations for their child’s postsecondary education, we administer a four-armed survey experiment to a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents. After respondents estimate costs of and returns to further education, we ask whether they prefer that their child pursue a four-year degree, a two-year degree, or no further education. Before this question is posed, the treated are first told:
(1) the net annual costs of pursuing a four-year and two-year degree in their state,
(2) the annual returns to four-year and two-year degrees as compared to no further education in …
Parental Occupational Choice And Children's Entry Into A Stem Field, Albert Cheng, Katherine Kopotic, Gema Zamarro
Parental Occupational Choice And Children's Entry Into A Stem Field, Albert Cheng, Katherine Kopotic, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
We explore the intergenerational occupational transmission between parents and their children as it pertains to entry into the STEM field. Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, we study student’s aspirations to work in a STEM field and eventual STEM education and employment. We show how these patterns change depending on whether the student’s parents work in a STEM field. We find strong effects of parental occupation type on student’s STEM outcomes that are heterogeneous by student gender. High school boys are more likely to aspire to work in STEM if one of their parents do so. By adulthood, both …