‘We do STEM as well’: Exploring Pathways in Australia’s STEM Workforce

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the need to increase STEM participation. This attention largely arises in anticipation of economic and job growth in STEM and concern that not enough graduates are being produced to fill this increased demand. Little understood is the detail of the pathways students take within STEM and how these align with predicted needs. Additionally, analyses of such pathways tend to focus on academic pathways within STEM which only account for a relatively small proportion of all STEM jobs rather than on both academic and vocational pathways. This paper analyses participation data for STEM programs across the STEM pathways of upper secondary and post-school tertiary participation in both academic and vocational streams from 2002 to 2021 to better understand STEM participation trends. In doing, so the paper highlights the presence of ongoing issues with some STEM pathways as well as the silences that are little discussed in the STEM participation discourse.