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Drawing from a sample of 1,126 10th-grade students across four school districts in Southern California, this study examined the net effects of family — and science class — related variables on students' interests in a physical science and/or engineering career, with particular attention to variations in these relationships by students' gender and racial/ethnic background. Findings indicate the role of family science orientation is contingent less on gender than on race/ethnicity, and students' perceptions of their science class experiences are not strongly related to their science career aspirations regardless of gender and race/ethnicity. Implications for patterns of underrepresentation in the science and engineering pipeline are discussed.
Gilmartin et al. (Sun,) studied this question.