The research explores the lived experiences of minority women in K-12 educational leadership, examining their motivations for pursuing careers in this field, and the challenges they encounter on their professional and educational journeys. The challenges faced are multifaceted and include issues related to gender, culture, and race/ethnicity.…

Founded on and sustained through patriarchal thought and value systems, higher education remains a highly gendered and en/gendering institution. This reflects and simultaneously constitutes epistemological injustice, and creates a viscous cycle or de/privilege. Moreover, regionality de-centres and further marginalizes women academics, and those…

This article proposes that researchers should seek to understand the value conflicts inherent in the career choices of gifted students. This study explored those conflicts using a narrative analysis based on the McAdams (1993) model of personal meaning-making. The subjects were two gifted female political leaders: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Jacinda…

While research on career paths has been studied for years, the impacts of identity rarely make it into the discussion. Leung et al. (1994) looked specifically at the factors that influence career aspirations in Asian Americans, but no South Asians were included in this work. To fill this gap, this research focused on the experience of South Asian…

Countless factors influence students' educational and career choices. We examined potential impacts on international students' choices to study STEM (science, technology, engineering, or math) through the lens of Social Cognitive Theory (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), we analyzed…

This paper explores ten Vietnamese female dance teachers' experiences, motivations to become dance teachers, and the professional challenges they encountered as they pursued dance teaching in the Vietnamese context. The findings reveal the dance teaching career was a way for the participants to maintain their passion in dance and bring them job…

This study focuses on the stories of four newly arrived women and their choices of vocational education and profession. The study highlights the women's life courses and addresses how their vocational skills from their home countries can influence their choices of vocational education and profession, and how these skills are utilised in Sweden.…

Both, educators and policy makers have expressed growing concerns over the low levels of math and science achievement among American students and the decline in the numbers of young people moving into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers (Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century, 2007; National Science…

Given the intricate and competitive global academic landscape and Chinese female PhDs' critical situation of being marginalized and otherized, this study aims to examine the academic career decision-making experiences of three unmarried and childless Chinese female PhD graduates. Collaborative autoethnography is employed to delve into the three…

It is widely known that women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We have a lack of women who choose STEM careers and women leave these careers at a higher rate than men. Women of color are especially underrepresented and face additional hurtles in building their STEM career. While interventions often…

Background: Women are underrepresented in the field of engineering within academic and professional settings. Based upon premises outlined by social role theory and goal congruity theory, a key factor that contributes to this underrepresentation is a gendered societal belief that there is a disconnect between engineering (seen as more agentic, or…

The under-representation of women in male-dominated STEM fields is a worldwide concern. However, there are other academic fields, like some non-STEM degrees, where female students are over-represented. Previous research has identified five critical factors influencing student participation rates: career choice, satisfaction, self-esteem,…

There is a considerable lack of women in the engineering disciplines at tertiary level in New Zealand. This is an economic issue because innovation and creativity in engineering are supported by diversity which directly and indirectly supports the New Zealand economy. Improving diversity in engineering will also improve equity. Literature suggests…

Undergraduate summer field programs are valuable experiences that can foster or reduce students' self-efficacy, an important factor in students' success and retention in geoscience. Growing research findings show that science field experiences can be hostile and unwelcoming to students with marginalized identities, which may negatively impact…

Recent studies and media articles draw attention to gender imbalances in the music industry, both locally in Australia and globally. In Australia, there have been calls to overhaul tertiary music programmes to support and encourage female students into careers such as sound production, screen composition and contemporary music performance, where…