In Arizona, 43 percent of children under the age of 5 are Hispanic. Many of those live in homes where Spanish is the primary language. Yet when they begin to attend school they’re expected to read, write and learn in English, and meet performance goals alongside other children for whom English is the first language.
In the U.S., women are substantially underrepresented in career fields based in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. A 2009 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce found that, while women make up nearly half of the American workforce, they hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs. The gender disparity is even more glaring in Egypt, where women account for only 26 percent of the overall workforce, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
PhD students and graduates produce many of the patent applications and patents that make the U.S. a global leader in technological innovation. This is particularly true of engineering PhDs, who are responsible for the highest number of patents in that field. In recent years, the number of engineering PhDs entering industry careers has increased, while those pursuing academic careers decreased.
Latinos make up the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. but remain underrepresented in STEM professions — science, technology, engineering and mathematics. According to the National Council of La Raza, while Latinos make up nearly 20 percent of the American workforce, they account for less than 10 percent of workers in STEM-related fields. Similarly, the U.S. Department of Education reports that while Latinos accounted for 16 percent of the U.S. population in 2010, they earned only 8 percent of all certificates and degrees awarded in STEM fields between 2009 and 2010.
In their Framework for K–12 Science Standards, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine define scientific knowledge as “a particular kind of knowledge with its own sources, justifications, ways of dealing with uncertainties and agreed-on levels of certainty.” Yet traditional school science emphasizes discoveries in their final forms, with little opportunity for students to experience how knowledge is developed — including the importance of uncertainty.
In Malawi, a nation of nearly 20 million in southeast Africa, more than 80,000 students graduate from secondary schools each year with no access to higher education. Multiple impediments are responsible for this lack of opportunity, including systemic societal barriers that confront females and students with disadvantages; the latter including orphans, persons with disabilities and students from rural areas served by an inadequate system of poorly resourced community schools. Similarly, institutions and stakeholders in the economy have significant capacity challenges to overcome.