There is little attention and consensus in science education for gifted learners, leading to insufficient support and understanding of their needs, which hinders their potential development as future scientists and professionals. Utilizing a narrative research design, the study explores the experiences of nine scientists identified as gifted in…

The purpose of this study was to understand why African American males decided to enter the counseling field, how they sustained themselves, and how they perceived their role as African American male counselors in the counseling field. This study described the experiences of African American male counselors while exploring the history of males in…

Rapid advances in technology have resulted in a worldwide drive to enhance science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforces to remain internationally competitive and ensure economic prosperity. Despite this, there is ongoing debate about the best strategies for promoting STEM literacy and building national STEM competencies.…

Background: Currently there are international concerns over teacher recruitment and attrition rates, especially in mathematics and the physical sciences. Much has been written about the recruitment of student teachers and the reasons people give for going into teaching, but little on the broader context of these people's lives and the complex…

This study examines factors that influence high school students' willingness to consider teaching as a career. Using predictive modeling, we identified five factors that are highly predictive of a students' willingness to consider teaching and their belief that teaching is their best career option. Results indicated that high school students were…

This article analyses the university experiences of 44 students with disabilities. The voices of Spanish students describe the reasons that lead them to choose a given university degree, their transition in the university, the perception they have of themselves as students and how they evaluate their academic results. This study was done with the…

This article explores the influence of personal and professional experiences on the development of teacher identity. The holistic perspective in this article refers to the language teachers' exploration of their personal and professional experiences with the use of both conscious/rational and intuitive/tacit thought processes. Three language…

Reporting on 12 case studies of student teachers, this paper examines how experiences during teacher education affect graduates' decision on job entrance. Interpretative data-analysis reveals that powerful sources of the shift in motivation to enter teaching concern interactions in which the person of the teacher is at stake. These mainly involve…

This study used an organizational socialization lens to examine factors influencing participants' decision to pursue the principalship and choice to engage in an alternate administration certification program. Through an analysis of participant focus groups and interviews, factors emerged from the codes that were compared with dimensions of…

This narrative research study explored the experiences of two Black women executive-level leaders who started their careers within higher education, including two-year technical colleges located in the Southeast during the pivotal sociopolitical moments that occurred during the 1960s to the 1980s. The stories of these women revealed their…

Interviews with 10 women employed in trades revealed four significant factors in the choice of nontraditional occupations: perceived innate ability, strong sense of self, desire for independence, and role models, especially family. Formal career education/counseling was not a factor. Contrary to previous studies, only 3 of the 10 were firstborn or…

Of 41 female high school graduates of an intensive math/science program, 30 pursued science, math, engineering, or computer careers; 6 maintained initial career aspirations throughout adolescence; 12 chose their current aspiration from initial ones; 8 developed new aspirations; and 15 shifted initial aspirations to new ones. Internships,…

The findings reported here are part of a larger study that examined how faculty view the linkages between themselves and their institutional work environments; how they create a sense of personal space and belonging within their academic units and the larger university; and how their self-perceptions of organizational fit affect their professional…

Examines the relationship between identity status categories and the experience of parental influence on career development. Life stories of 11 young adults regarding significant events through which their parents influenced them were classified by narrative structure based on Gergen and Gergen's macrostructure framework. Results indicated…

This chapter explores the important social-psychological factors along individuals' developmental pathways that influence youths' computer-related occupational decisions. Findings suggest that these factors differentially influence information technology pursuits dependent on youths' race and gender. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)