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Unlocking STEM Identities Through Family Conversations About Topics in and Beyond STEM: The Contributions of Family Communication Patterns

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Publicado en:Behavioral Sciences vol. 15, no. 2 (2025), p. 106
Autor principal: Dou, Remy
Otros Autores: Villa, Nicole, Cian, Heidi, Sunbury, Susan, Sadler, Philip M, Sonnert, Gerhard
Publicado:
MDPI AG
Materias:
Identity formation
Socialization
Verbal communication
College students
Childhood
Structural equation modeling
Family support
Child development
Families & family life
STEM education
Racial discrimination
Engineering
Mathematics
Children & youth
Communication
Historically Black Colleges & Universities
Caregivers
Learning
Ethnic identity
Interpersonal communication
Polls & surveys
Topics
Racism
Conversation
Acceso en línea:Citation/Abstract
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Resumen:Research shows that family conversations about STEM topics positively influence children’s STEM identity development. This study expands on these findings by exploring how family conversations beyond STEM content contribute to this development. Specifically, we focus on how non-academic forms of family support—as described by students who face systemic racial discrimination in STEM—shape these conversations. In this way, we extend existing work by exploring the extent to which families’ dispositions to talk about a wide range of topics—not just in STEM—might further support youth identification with STEM fields. Using Family Communication Patterns Theory (FCPT) to guide our analysis, we examined data from a survey of first-year college students (n = 1134) attending Minority-Serving Institutions and public universities in the United States. The survey asked students to reflect on their childhood conversations and their current sense of identity in STEM. Using structural equation modeling, we found that family disposition to engage in conversations about a broad range of topics was linked to more frequent STEM-related conversations during childhood and, in turn, greater identification as a “STEM person” in college. These findings highlight the complex ways that family communication patterns can support construction of an individual’s sense of themselves as a STEM person in later years. By interpreting these findings using FCPT, we highlight the nature of family communication patterns that can contribute to STEM identity formation.
ISSN:2076-328X
DOI:10.3390/bs15020106
Fuente:Science Database