The Effects of Sibship Structure on the Decision of STEM Curriculum Track in Senior High School

Yi-Chun Chang , National Taiwan Normal University

This study tries to combine two lines of literature-the STEM education and the effect of sibship structure on educational attainment, and to investigate how sibship sex composition influences individual's decision of curriculum track. Using the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS) (N=8,039), the preliminary findings show that the effect of math achievement for girls is significantly higher than that for boys, and the positive effects of individual's educational aspiration on choosing STEM track is only present among girls, but not boys. Moreover, the students with opposite sex siblings incline to follow traditional gender values. Having sisters increases boys' probability to choose the STEM education, while having brothers decreases girls' probability to enter the STEM track. These results imply that the gender asymmetric influence of sibship sex composition on individual's educational opportunity might transfer from vertical stratification-educational attainment-into horizontal differentiation-STEM curriculum track.

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 Presented in Session 124. Flash Session: Causes and Consequences of Educational Inequalities