46 Demographic Characteristics of High School Math and Science Teachers and Girls (Stearns, 2016)

Social Problems, 2016, 63, 87–110
doi: 10.1093/socpro/spv027
Advance Access Publication Date: 8 January 2016
Article
Demographic Characteristics of High

School Math and Science Teachers and
Girls’ Success in STEM
Elizabeth Stearns,1 Martha Cecilia Bottı́a,1 Eleonora Davalos,1
Roslyn Arlin Mickelson,1 Stephanie Moller,1 and
Lauren Valentino2
Downloaded from http://socpro.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on March 13, 2016

1
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and 2Duke University
ABSTRACT
Given the prestige and compensation of science and math-related occupations, the un-
derrepresentation of women and people of color in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics majors (STEM) perpetuates entrenched economic and social inequities.
Explanations for this underrepresentation have largely focused on individual characteristics,
including uneven academic preparation, as well as institutional factors at the college level.
In this article, we focus instead on high schools. We highlight the influence of the intersec-
tion between race and gender of female math and science teachers on students’ decisions to
major in STEM fields. Theoretically, this article extends the political science concept of rep-
resentative bureaucracy to the issue of women’s and disadvantaged minorities’ underrepre-
sentation in STEM majors. We analyze longitudinal data from public school students in
North Carolina to test whether organizational demography of high school math and science
faculty has an association with college major choice and graduation. Using hierarchical pro-
bit models with an instrumental-variable approach, we find that young white women are
more likely to major in STEM fields and to graduate with STEM degrees when they come
from high schools with higher proportions of female math and science teachers, irrespective
of the race of the teacher. At the same time, these teachers do not depress young white or
African American men’s chances of majoring in STEM. Results for African American
women are less conclusive, highlighting the limitations of their small sample size.
K E Y W O R D S : gender and education; representative bureaucracy; math/science education;

high school to college transitions; gender gaps in STEM.
Although the relative social position of women has advanced in many ways, gender inequalities in ed-
ucation and the workforce remain prevalent features of American society (Poirier et al. 2009).
Likewise, African Americans are persistently less likely to major in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) fields than whites are (National Center for Science and Engineering
Statistic 2013). While women make up almost half of workers in the U.S. economy, they hold one-
This work was supported by the NSF Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP)
[Grant Number DUE-0969286]. All errors and interpretations are those of the authors. Direct correspondence to: Elizabeth Stearns,
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Sociology, 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223. E-mail:
Elizabeth.stearns@uncc.edu.
C The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. All rights reserved.
V
For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
87
88 Stearns, Bottı́a, Davalos, Mickelson, Moller, and Valentino
quarter of science and engineering jobs and African Americans are underrepresented in STEM jobs
as well (U.S. Department of Commerce 2011). Perplexingly, gender inequality in STEM occupations
persists despite the fact that women have surpassed men in the amount of education earned (DiPrete
and Buchmann 2013). Instead, this racial and gender stratification in STEM occupations seems to
have its roots in horizontal stratification in the post-secondary educational system—differences in the
types of majors that students pursue in college.
Research investigating the causes of gender and racial disparities in STEM enrollment and gradua-
tion at the postsecondary level has identified various explanations for these inequalities, emphasizing
both individual-level factors such as prior academic achievement and attitudes (Cronin and Roger
1999; Fox 1998; Ong 2005; Riegle-Crumb et al. 2012), as well as institutional-level factors. Most
studies on STEM inequities that have used an institutional perspective have concentrated on college
characteristics. For example, a noteworthy body of research has been established on the gender com-
position of college faculty in STEM departments, although no consensus has been reached as to
whether any association exists between departmental demography and students’ choice of major
fields of study (e.g., Bettinger and Long 2005; Griffith 2010; Price 2010; Robst, Keil, and Russo

1998; Sonnert, Fox, and Adkins 2007). At the same time, Joshua Price (2010) and Kevin Rask and
Elizabeth Bailey (2002) conclude that black students’ probability of majoring in STEM increases if
they have a black instructor for a STEM course. Those relatively few studies that have examined both
gender and racial disparities in choice of major note that it is far from certain that women from un-
derrepresented minority groups are doubly disadvantaged in STEM classrooms (Hanson 2004, 2007;
Riegle-Crumb and King 2010).
More recently, an emerging body of research has begun to focus on the importance of the pre-
college developmental and institutional context, including the high school, with regard to the gender
gap in STEM (Bottia et al. 2015; Legewie and DiPrete 2014a, 2014b; Wang 2013). It stands to rea-
son that many of the dynamics that are discussed in this literature, including underlining the impor-
tance of pre-college contexts in influencing the process of forming intentions regarding college major,
might apply equally well to racial disparities in STEM. Here, we make the case that the race/gender
composition of math/science faculty in high schools influences students’ choice of majors. We use a
theory of representative bureaucracy, derived from the fields of political sociology and political sci-
ence, to argue that math and science teachers at the high school level constitute an important re-
source shaping students’ opportunities to pursue STEM fields. We combine this theoretical approach
with an intersectional approach to inequality, highlighting the intersection of race and gender among
both students and high school faculty. Using a unique data set of administrative records from public
school students in North Carolina, we test whether the demographic composition of high school
math and science faculty is associated with students’ probability of declaring and graduating with
STEM majors when they reach college. Furthermore, we investigate whether any observed effects are
consistent across racial/ethnic groups and to what extent the intersectionality of teachers’ racial and
gender groups matters for student outcomes.
THEORETICAL APPROACH: WHY MIGHT TEACHERS MATTER?

The theory of representative bureaucracy argues that a bureaucracy that is representative of the peo-
ple it serves will mirror the interests of its clients. There are two forms of representation: passive,
which simply denotes that the bureaucracy is demographically representative of the population it
serves; and active, wherein members of the bureaucracy undertake direct advocacy of their clients’ in-
terests (Mosher 1968). This active representation takes the form of policy decisions that benefit one
group over others. In other words, active representation involves bureaucrats making decisions that
benefit people who are like them in some way, but perhaps not always at the expense of those who
are not (Keiser et al. 2002; Meier and Stewart 1992; Wilkins and Keiser 2004). For example, teachers
who share a race with students have more positive evaluations of those students than teachers from
different racial groups (Dee 2005; Downey and Pribesh 2004; McGrady and Reynolds 2012).
Teacher Demographics and Girls’ Success in STEM 89
Yet an increasing body of research on outcomes indicates that passive representation is also impor-
tant. This symbolic representation of people whom bureaucracies’ clients perceive to be similar to
themselves may make the services that agencies are providing more attractive to clients, thereby alter-
ing the behavior of the clients whom the bureaucrats are serving, in part because the bureaucrats are
acting as role models. This behavior alteration is seen in a variety of different outcomes both inside
and outside educational settings (Lim 2006; Meier and Nicholson-Crotty 2006; Theobald and
Haider-Markel 2009). In schools, the presence of African American female teachers is associated with
lower teen pregnancy rates among African American girls, due to a combination of role modeling and
of active guidance that teachers give girls regarding romantic choices and the importance of future ed-
ucation (Atkins and Wilkins 2013). Moreover, there are higher test scores for minority students in
schools with more African American teachers (Meier, Wrinkle, and Polinard 1999).
In contrast to the robust literature regarding race, evidence is spottier as to whether bureaucra-
cies representative in terms of gender behave any differently from less representative bureaucra-
cies, with less consensus as to whether gender is a salient identity on which to base
representation (e.g., Meier and Stewart 1992; Meier, Stewart, and England 1989). More recent re-

search suggests, however, that symbolic (or passive) representation may be important in changing
women’s behaviors. High school girls are more likely to take physics courses in high schools
when the communities in which they live are populated by more women working in STEM occu-
pations (Riegle-Crumb and Moore 2013). Furthermore, girls have higher math achievement
scores when they attend schools with more female math teachers (Keiser et al. 2002) and they
are more likely to major in physical science, engineering, and mathematics when they attend high
schools with more female math and science teachers (Bottia et al. 2015). Both boys and girls
have been found to have higher achievement test scores, as well as higher teacher evaluations of
engagement and performance when their gender matches that of their teacher (Dee 2005, 2007;
Ehrenberg, Goldhaber, and Brewer 1995).
In fact, we argue that, whether they are passive or active representatives of their students’ interests,
math and science teachers may serve as a resource for students at their high schools in many ways.
Adolescents’ intentions regarding major field of study are known to be formed during high school as
students gain an understanding of what their work lives are likely to look like (Hossler and Stage
1992; Legewie and Diprete 2014a; Maltese and Tai 2011; Schneeweis and Zweimuller 2012; Tracey,
Robbins, and Hofsess 2005). These intentions to major are one of the strongest predictors of the
fields that they actually do choose when they reach the university (Wang 2013). Thus, it is necessary
to look at the potential influences on their decision making and perceptions of science and math dur-
ing high school. Note that our focus in this study is not on the gender or racial match between the in-
dividual student and the math and science teachers that the student encounters in his/her own
classrooms, but rather on the gender and racial composition of the math and science faculty in the
high schools that the student attends.
Teachers as Passive Representatives

One crucial part of the process through which students make decisions about their future college ma-
jors is whether they perceive those fields to be suitable for people like them. Since men make up the
majority of engineers and scientists, girls have limited exposure to female role models in the STEM
fields (Schuck 1998). Likewise, students of color may lack role models in the STEM fields. Many
studies have argued that women see success and persistence in math and science fields as fundamen-
tally masculine domains (Correll 2001; Eisenhart, Finkel, and Marion 1996; Guimond and Roussel
2001; Lee 1998). As passive representatives, a preponderance of female math and science teachers at
their schools may signal to young women that those fields are indeed a home for people like them. In
other words, the simple presence of a sizeable group of STEM teachers who are women may inter-
rupt the cognitive association—what Sandra Bem (1993) and Virginia Valian (1998) refer to as
gender schema—between STEM success and masculinity, thereby increasing the odds that girls and
young women will enroll in and go on to succeed in STEM fields (Ma 2011).
In general, a higher proportion of female math and science teachers may improve girls’ percep-
tions of the cultural setting of STEM classrooms, help them to view STEM as more being welcoming
to women (Fox, Sonnert, and Nikiforova 2009; Statham, Richardson, and Cook 1991), and less
male-biased (National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity 2013). In addition, for girls questioning
whether STEM fields are the right fields for them, the presence of successful women teachers may
show them that barriers to success for them are not insurmountable (Steele 1997). This is the case
regardless of the gender of the instructors the students have in their own classrooms because we ex-
pect the dynamic also encompasses the possibility that girls are aware of the gender composition of
the overall faculty in certain academic areas. It may also be that it is necessary for there to be substan-
tially more women than men teachers in science and math to counter prevalent associations between
math and science and masculinity, especially given that these associations are established by elemen-
tary school (Andre et al. 1999; Meece, Glienke, and Burg 2006). These social aspects of classroom
climates may lead girls and young women to question whether they “belong” in STEM classes, ques-

tions that can be answered, at least in part, by the presence of female teachers in high school math
and science classrooms.
Yet an intersectional approach complicates these arguments somewhat. Key to the complications
is the issue of the salience of race and gender in the ways in which students and teachers view one an-
other. For example, would female African American students view white female teachers as potential
STEM role models? Evidence regarding this question is somewhat thin: Danielle Atkins and Vicky
Wilkins (2013) concluded that race was a more salient characteristic to students than was gender, in
that African American male and female students tended to see their primarily female African
American teachers as role models. These male students did not see white male teachers as role mod-
els and female students did not tend to regard their white female teachers as role models. They found
no significant association between gender composition of the faculty and their outcome, while noting
a significant relationship between racial composition of the faculty and their outcome of interest.
They were, however, examining teen pregnancy, an issue that is persistently and highly racialized,
which may have affected their findings.
Moreover, it is well established that the social constructions of gender vary across racial/ethnic
group, such that the association of STEM with agency and independence—characteristics thought to
be more masculine—might also vary across those groups (Nosek et al. 2007; O’Brien et al. 2015).
More specifically, associations of masculinity with agency and femininity with dependence and passiv-
ity have been found to be weaker among African Americans than among whites. African Americans
also tend to put more emphasis on the value of independence and self-reliance among women (Black
and Peacock 2011; Robinson 1983). All of these differences in the social constructions of gender,
combined with other research that shows African American women’s having more positive attitudes
toward science and being more likely to choose STEM majors than white women (Hanson 2004;
O’Brien et al. 2015; Riegle-Crumb and King 2010), might lead us to expect there to be a differential
influence of organizational demography on the STEM-related outcomes of young women depending
on their race/ethnicity. Here, the intersectional approach allows us to question whether the teachers
in the math/science faculty need match the students on both race and gender in order to serve as sig-
nals that the students belong in the classroom.
Teachers as Active Representatives

Math and science teachers can also take up more active forms of representation for students’ interests
in these courses as well. In an example of active representation, female teachers in math and sciences
have been shown to have higher subjective evaluations of their female students and to encourage
them more than male teachers do (Dee 2007, 2005; Ehrenberg and Brewer 1994; Hanson 1996).
This encouragement is particularly important, given that it may be needed to offset some of the per-
sistent bias against girls’ math abilities that teachers show (Riegle-Crumb and Humphries 2012).
Teachers may also actively communicate positive feedback to girls, giving them overt and explicit
signs of reassurance that math and science are indeed appropriate fields for them, thus encouraging
higher achievement. In fact, young women’s math scores are significantly higher in high schools
where women make up a greater proportion of the math and science faculty (Keiser et al. 2002) and
they are more likely to enroll in and graduate from college when they attend high schools with more
female high school faculty overall (Nixon and Robinson 1999). It is also possible that female teachers
may sponsor STEM-related clubs or activities. Again, these works do not give insight into whether ef-
fects of faculty gender composition are equally experienced across racial groups.
Finally, although it does not fall neatly on the passive-active representation continuum, if gendered
patterns of pedagogy that are seen among college instructors are similar among high school teachers,
female teachers may be more likely to use student-centered pedagogies such as collaborative learning,
which have consistently been associated with higher achievement levels and more thorough learning
of concepts (Gibbs 1992; Singer 1996; Trigwell et al. 1998; Webber 2012). In addition, they are

more likely to view students as having the potential to contribute to the classroom and thus do more
to encourage student participation in the classroom (Henderson, Dancy, and Niewiadomska-Bugaj
2012; Hurtado et al. 2012; Statham, Richardson, and Cook 1991). If female teachers use pedagogies
that lead to better student learning outcomes, then we might expect the presence of female faculty to
be positively associated with STEM outcomes for all students, regardless of gender or racial group.
To summarize, we hypothesize that there will be a positive relationship between the proportion of
female math and science teachers at the secondary school level and the probability that young women
will declare and graduate with STEM major. We also hypothesize that the proportion of African
American teachers will be positively associated with African American students’ probability of declar-
ing a major in and graduating with STEM degrees. Given the persistently gendered nature of the
STEM gap, we expect to find that the presence of female teachers will be positively associated with
STEM outcomes for both white and African American girls, but we expect to find stronger effects for
co-ethnic teachers.
We recognize that several of the potential causal mechanisms that we have discussed may account
for any observed association between organizational demography at the high school level and the col-
lege majors that students choose. In this article, we use an instrumental variable approach to establish
first whether a more heavily female math and science teaching staff in high school has an average pos-
itive effect on female students in the high school. Then, we determine whether any results are specific
to one racial group and, finally, whether teacher race*gender matters for those STEM outcomes. To
investigate these mechanisms we conduct a quantitatively rigorous examination of the association be-
tween contextual characteristics and student outcomes. Our study extends prior work (Bottia et al.
2015) in that we provide an empirically rigorous examination of aspects of the high school context—
the racial and gender composition of math and science faculty—that has not been studied for its asso-
ciation with students’ choice of STEM major during college using an intersectional approach.
DATA
We use a unique data set to address our hypotheses, the North Carolina Roots data set (Stearns et al.
2013). This data set contains longitudinal information on the academic performance of all North
Carolina public school students from seventh grade through college graduation. Additionally, the
data set contains information about the characteristics of the schools that students attended through-
out their educational careers. All of these data originate in administrative records. The North
Carolina Education Research Data Center at Duke University provided data following students from
grades 7 through 12, and the University of North Carolina General Administration provided data on
college experiences.
We focus on a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse sample of 21,300 college-bound

students who attended 540 middle school and 350 high schools1 in North Carolina and later at-
tended any of the 16 University of North Carolina colleges in 2004.2 Our sample includes those stu-
dents who matriculated at one of the UNC campuses in the fall of 2004 for the first time. This
sample of students had higher average SAT math and reading scores than those students who did not
attend colleges in the UNC system and had planned to attend a four-year college when they took the
SAT (see Appendix A). Given that we have middle school information for 18,700 students, and other
variables had missing values, our sample size was further decreased. We ultimately arrived at a sample
of approximately 16,300 students with characteristics very similar to our original sample (results avail-
able from authors). The longitudinal nature of this data set is ideal for examining the influences on
college major choice across a variety of different social settings, particularly considering the fact that
many students form an intention regarding their major while they are still in high school (Legewie
and DiPrete 2014a, 2014b; Maltese and Tai 2011).
In this cohort, 17 percent of entering freshmen declared a STEM major and 19 percent of those
who actually graduated did so with a STEM major. The unequal gender attainment of STEM majors

is readily apparent in the UNC system. Young men are overrepresented in STEM majors: although
only 43 percent of students in the entire system are young men, 57 percent of the students that grad-
uated from a STEM major were young men. The system has a 9-point gender gap in the declaration
of a STEM major, and a 13-point gender gap in the completion of a STEM major in the system.
Interestingly, the gender gap in STEM declaration and completion is somewhat smaller for African
American students than for white students. This smaller gap is due primarily to the fact that African
American men are less likely to declare (22.3 percent) and graduate with a STEM major (17.9 per-
cent) than are white men (30.2 percent and 28.9 percent for declaration and graduation, respec-
tively). Numbers for African American women (14.4 percent declaration and 11.8 percent
graduation) are very similar to those of white women (16.3 percent declaration and 14.4 percent
graduation).
OUTCOME VARIABLES
We use two dependent variables as indicators of success in STEM: (1) a student declared a STEM
major (versus declaring any other non-STEM major) and (2) a student graduated with a STEM ma-
jor in the six years following his or her entrance into the UNC university system (versus the student
graduating from any other major).3 We ran separate analyses for each outcome (those who declare
and those who graduate from a STEM major) given that, in the cohort of NC university system stu-
dents that we analyzed, 24 percent of the students that declared a STEM major never graduated with
such a degree. To define a STEM major, we begin with the categorization utilized by the National
Science Foundation ADVANCE Program (NSF n.d.) where majors such as engineering, physical sci-
ences, earth, atmospheric or ocean sciences, mathematical and computer sciences, and biological and
agricultural sciences are considered to fall within the umbrella of STEM. We modify the ADVANCE
1. Ninety-two percent of the schools included in our sample had ten or more students participating in our analyses. None of the
public schools included in our sample is an all-girls or all-boys school. At the time this cohort of students was attending schools,
there was no single-sex public high school in the state of North Carolina. Wake County opened the state’s first single-sex public
schools in 2012.
2. These campuses are: Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State
University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State
University, UNC-Asheville, UNC -Charlotte, UNC -Chapel Hill, UNC -Greensboro, UNC -Pembroke, UNC -Wilmington,
University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Western Carolina University, and Winston-Salem State University.
3. The sample of students utilized in the analysis for “Graduate with a STEM major” is substantially smaller because we are compar-
ing them to students that actually graduate from any other major. Many students that had missing values in declared majors
fields were also excluded in the analysis for “Declare a STEM major.” We utilized a sample of 12,300 students in 200 high
schools to run models where the dependent variable is “Declare a STEM major” and we used a sample of 10,500 students, com-
ing from 160 high schools to run models in which the dependent variable is “Graduate with a STEM major.”
program’s definition to exclude social and behavioral sciences from STEM for this analysis, given the
gender balance that has historically categorized most of the majors in these fields.
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
Our key independent variables measure the organizational demography of high school math and sci-
ence faculty in various ways. First, we use the proportion of science and math teachers in a student’s
high school who are women. To create this measure, we took information from high school class-
room personnel files and calculated the gender composition of math and science teachers at each
high school between the years 2000 through 2004, years that correspond to the high school careers
of the students in our sample. Based on the State Course Code Subject Area, which indicates the
state-defined subject area to which teachers’ activity can most closely be associated, we determined
each teacher’s subject area. We also used the Outline of the Course Coding Structure for NC Public
Schools 2005–2006, which defines the discipline of the subject; we categorized all teachers in the dis-
ciplines of mathematics and science as math and science teachers. We then determined the propor-

tion of female teachers out of all of the math and science teachers in each of the high schools.
We pursued similar calculations to measure the proportion of the math and science teachers who were
black, the proportion of the math and science teachers who were white females, and the proportion of
math and science teachers who were black females. Together, these variables measure departmental de-
mography in the students’ high schools. Means and standard deviations of variables may be found in
Table 1. Race-gender specific means for African American and white girls are shown in Table 2.
On average, across the 350 high schools included, 63 percent of the math and science teachers
were women, but some schools had no math and science faculty who were women and as many as
100 percent of their math and science teachers who were women. Approximately 15 percent of the
math and science teachers were African American, with as much variability in the range of African
American teachers.
Control Variables
We control for many secondary school characteristics that are frequently associated with student suc-
cess. All of these factors help capture important earlier contextual characteristics of the schools that
could contribute to increased or decreased chances of declaring and/or graduating from a STEM major.
These characteristics include: racial and socioeconomic composition of the school (proportion of white
students at the school and proportion of students on free-reduced lunch at the school); proportion of
female students in the school; proportion of teachers with licenses; proportion of teachers with ad-
vanced degrees; proportion of inexperienced teachers (those with less than three years of experience);
proportion of students in advanced college preparatory courses; and school locale (urban, suburban, or
rural).4 Correlations of school-level variables used in the estimations may be found in Table 2.
At the individual level, we control for demographic and family characteristics that are also fre-
quently associated with student outcomes, including race/ethnicity and SES (defined as whether stu-
dent received free-reduced lunch in seventh grade, received need-based financial aid in college, and is
a first generation college student in his or her family). We also control for whether the student trans-
ferred schools between ninth and eleventh grades. In addition, we include whether the student plans
to attend college, a question that students answered in the ninth grade.5
4. Log of school size, student/teacher ratio, and whether the school was a magnet or charter school were school-level variables in-
cluded in the preliminary analysis, but given their non-significant results, these were not included in the final models presented
in this article.
5. Previous versions of the article also included several controls that an anonymous reviewer pointed out might be collider variables that
would be outcomes of our key independent variable and thereby bias the estimation. These variables included teacher turnover, stan-
dardized test scores, and measures of course-taking patterns (measured by North Carolina’s standardized End-of-Course [EOC] test
scores in algebra 2 and biology; whether the student took the chemistry EOC exam). In light of this comment, however, we have omit-
ted those variables from the models presented in this article. Results are substantively identical when those variables are included.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Variables Used in Probit and IVProbit Estimations

Declare a STEM Major Graduate with a STEM Major
Women Men Women Men
Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std.
Dependent variables
Declared a STEM major .164 .371 .298 .457
Graduate from a STEM major .143 .350 .274 .446
Demographic measures
African American student .247 .431 .185 .389 .219 .414 .152 .359
Latino student .018 .131 .016 .123 .017 .130 .015 .121
Asian American student .032 .178 .040 .197 .033 .178 .040 .196
American Indian student .012 .107 .010 .101 .011 .106 .010 .100
Receives need-based financial aid in college .400 .490 .361 .480 .375 .484 .337 .473

Receives free-reduced lunch in 7th grade .137 .344 .097 .296 .120 .325 .079 .270
First generation college student .119 .323 .096 .295 .112 .316 .090 .287
Experiences during high school
Transferred school between 9th and 11th .065 .246 .065 .247 .062 .241 .063 .243
grades
Plans to attend college .947 .224 .923 .266 .951 .217 .925 .264
Secondary school-level variables
Proportion students on free/reduced lunch .210 .136 .194 .127 .206 .133 .190 .124
High school located in a rural area .351 .477 .343 .475 .352 .478 .341 .474
High school located in suburban area .299 .458 .287 .452 .300 .458 .286 .452
High school located in a urban area .350 .477 .371 .483 .348 .476 .373 .484
Proportion white students .642 .218 .658 .205 .651 .213 .665 .199
Proportion female students .496 .020 .494 .020 .496 .020 .494 .020
Proportion students in advanced college track .271 .082 .278 .081 .273 .082 .280 .081
Proportion licensed teachers .820 .077 .822 .075 .822 .075 .824 .074
Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees .031 .028 .033 .029 .031 .028 .034 .029
Proportion black math and science teachers .153 .154 .140 .136 .146 .149 .134 .130
Proportion women math and science teachers .636 .095 .634 .094 .636 .095 .634 .094
by district
N 8,330 6,060 7,330 5,000
ANALYTIC TECHNIQUE
To address our research questions, we use probit6 regression models with random high school effects
and college fixed effects. The dependent variable has a binary distribution and normally distributed
residuals. We control for arbitrary correlation within a school by using Huber-White standard errors
6. We ran logit and probit models for women and men in each specification. The estimates from the two models are consistent.
The signs of the coefficients are the same across models, and the same variables are statistically significant in each model. We
also estimated the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) to compare the goodness of
fit of the probit and logit models. The AIC and BIC favor the probit model over the logit model (see Appendix B). As a result,
we prefer to use a probit model instead of a logit because it facilitates the implementation of instrumental variables methods
with binary dependent variables.
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Variables Used in Probit and IVProbit Estimations

Declare a STEM Major Graduate with a STEM Major
Black Women White Women Black Women White Women
Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std.
Dependent variables
Declared a STEM major .144 .351 .163 .370
Graduate from a STEM major .117 .321 .144 .351
Demographic measures
Receives need-based financial aid in college .633 .482 .303 .460 .608 .488 .289 .454
Receives free-reduced lunch in 7th grade .398 .490 .038 .191 .379 .485 .036 .185
First generation college student .195 .397 .083 .276 .193 .395 .080 .271
Experiences during high school
Transferred school between 9th and 11th .090 .286 .055 .229 .092 .289 .053 .223

grades
Plans to attend college .933 .250 .954 .210 .941 .236 .956 .206
Secondary school-level variables
Proportion students on free/reduced lunch .292 .162 .178 .108 .293 .162 .177 .107
High school located in a rural area .293 .455 .377 .485 .292 .455 .376 .484
High school located in suburban area .287 .453 .303 .460 .298 .457 .302 .459
High school located in a urban area .419 .494 .321 .467 .411 .492 .322 .467
Proportion white students .459 .218 .714 .171 .462 .217 .714 .169
Proportion female students .499 .020 .495 .020 .500 .020 .495 .020
Proportion students in advanced college track .246 .081 .280 .081 .245 .082 .281 .081
Proportion licensed teachers .784 .089 .833 .068 .787 .089 .833 .068
Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees .026 .025 .032 .028 .027 .026 .032 .028
Proportion black math and science teachers .279 .203 .106 .098 .276 .206 .106 .098
by district
N 2,060 5,750 1,580 5,270
clustered by high school, and we account for factors that may vary across colleges by including sepa-
rate dummy variables for each college. North Carolina State University serves as reference category
since it is a flagship STEM college in the UNC system.7
We utilize probit models to examine two outcomes: students’ chances of declaring a STEM major
during the years 2005-2011 and their probability of graduating with a STEM major in those same
years. Probit models with random high school effects and college fixed effects allow us to examine
the influence of high school characteristics that impact college students’ likelihood of declaring and
graduating with a STEM major, taking into consideration the fact that certain groups of students at-
tended the same high schools, and some students attended the same college. The basic econometric
7. We ran separate models using each of the UNC campuses as a reference category; there is no significant difference in our
results.
Table 3. Correlations of School Level Variables Used in Probit and IVProbit Estimations
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1 Proportion students on
free/reduced lunch
2 High school located .12
in a rural area
3 High school located .06 .64
in suburban area
4 High school located .08 .52 .33
in a urban area
5 Proportion white .59 .24 .03 .32
students
6 Proportion female .00 .07 .06 .01 .03
students

7 Proportion students .38 .16 .01 .20 .26 .05
in advanced college track
8 Proportion .33 .07 .06 .15 .53 .17 .40
licensed teachers
9 Proportion of teachers .31 .27 .08 .42 .03 .12 .33 .08
with advanced degrees
10 Proportion black .54 .18 .08 .31 .85 .09 .28 .53 .07
math and science
teachers
11 Proportion women .10 .09 .02 .09 .15 .01 .14 .03 .04 .15
math and science
teachers
12 Proportion women .14 .04 .01 .07 .23 .01 .16 .07 .05 .20 .68
math and science
teachers by district
model is presented in Equation 1: Probit model assessing probability of enrollment and graduation
with STEM majors by student and secondary school characteristics

Pr yiðjkÞ ¼ 1 j xi ; wj ; zk ¼ U ðc0 þ c1 xiðjkÞ þ c2 wj þ c3 zk Þ
where i ¼ 1; :::; N, j ¼ 1; :::; 322, and k ¼ 1; :::; 15.

The outcome variable is the chance of declaring and graduating with a STEM major for student i
who attended high school j, and college k, yiðjkÞ , where j and k are placed in parentheses to reflect
cross-classification. U is the cumulative standard normal distribution function, and xi , wj , and zk are
vectors of regressors. Students’ chances of declaring and/or graduating with a STEM major are a
function of student individual characteristics, xiðjkÞ , high school variables, wj , and different college at-
tributes, zk . We estimate the model on two different samples depending on sex, given that we have
hypothesized a gender-specific association between high school measures and the probabilities of de-
claring and graduating with a STEM major, and use individual school-level variables centered at the
grand mean.
Our first approach to answer our research question assumes that school selection is indepen-
dent of the characteristics of the teachers in each school. Based on that assumption, we use a pro-
bit model to estimate the effect of high school characteristics on the likelihood of declaring and/
or graduating with a STEM major. However, students may not be sorted randomly into schools
because their parents may have selected their home location based on their school preferences.
To control for the possibility that students are not randomly distributed across high schools
(Conger and Long 2013), we use an instrumental variable approach following Eric Bettinger and
Bridget Long (2005) and Joshua Price (2010). Those studies attempted to determine the impact
of instructor gender and race on student outcomes using an instrumental variable at the depart-
ment or institution level, one unit of analysis above the unit of analysis of their key independent
variable in a typical organization. Their instrumental variable was the percentage of courses
taught by women or a black instructor. In this study, we are attempting to tease out the influence
of a school-level measure (organizational demography) on student outcomes; hence, we use an
instrumental variable at the district level, which is one level above the unit of analysis of our key
independent variable. Using the instrumental variable controls for the possibility that students
are not randomly sorted among high schools. The basic econometric model for the instrumental
variable approach is presented in Equation 2: Probit model with a continuous endogenous ex-
planatory variable:

Structural equation : y1 ¼ d1 xi þ a1 wj þ d2 zk þ u1

y1 ¼ 1 y1 > 0
Reduced-form equation : wj ¼ d21 xi þ d22 zk þ h1 fl þ v2
where wj is endogenous if u1 and v2 are correlated.

The outcome variable y1 is the chance of declaring and graduating with a STEM major. wj is the
endogenous variable. xi and zk are vectors of exogenous variables including student individual charac-
teristics and college attributes, and fl is the instrumental variable for wj .8 We use the ivprobit proce-
dure in STATA to fit our probit model with one endogenous regressor.9
RESULTS
In the subsequent tables, we first present results from the probit model without an instrumental vari-
able followed by results from models with the instrumental variable. Tables 4 and 5 address the

8. We argue that our instrument, f1 , satisfies the two conditions for a valid instrument. First, the instrument is relevant: Cov fl ; wj
6¼ 0 and h1 6¼ 0. The condition h1 6¼ 0 means that f1 is partially correlated with wj once the other exogenous variables ðxi and
zk Þ have been netted out. We tested this condition by computing the F-statistic testing the hypothesis that the coefficient on the
instrument is zero in the first-stage regression. In all our models the first-stage F-statistic exceeds 10. Therefore, our instrument
is relevant (Stock, Wright, and Yogo 2002). These results are reported at the bottom of each table under first-stage estimation.
Second, the instrument is exogenous: Covðfl ; u1 Þ ¼ 0 and f1 is uncorrelated with the dependent variable, y1 , other than
through its correlation with wj . This condition, sometimes called the exclusion restriction, has two parts. The instrument is as
good as randomly assigned and has an effect on the outcome variable only through the first-stage channel (Angrist and Pischke
2009).
The exclusion restriction, however, cannot be tested directly (Imai, et al. 2011; Kraay 2012; Sobel 2008). As a result, we try to
rule out some of the potential violations theoretically. North Carolina’s school districts tend to be quite large: it is likely that par-
ents could choose their home location based on particular school characteristics such as convenience of location or student de-
mographic information (Dougherty et al. 2009; Goyette, Farrie, and Freely 2012; Hamilton and Guin 2005; Schneider and
Buckley 2002; Theobald 2005), but less likely that they will choose based on district characteristics. When and if families do
move for different educational opportunities, they are more likely to be looking at student demographics including racial and so-
cioeconomic composition than for teacher characteristics (Schneider and Buckley 2002) or relying on sometimes faulty informa-
tion and erroneous perceptions about school quality (Holme 2002). Nevertheless, we include district fixed effects to control for
factors that may vary across districts but do not vary within districts, for instance labor market conditions. We grouped districts
into different categories, based on the number of schools per district, and created separate dummy variables. We created 11
dummy variables, one for districts with one school, another for districts with two schools, and so on. The maximum number of
schools per district was 15 schools, and there were no districts with 10, 12, 13, or 14 schools in our sample.
9. IVProbit is equivalent to an IVRegress procedure for a linear regression analysis. Using maximum likelihood estimation,
IVProbit fits probit models that have one or more regressors that are correlated with the error term (StataCorp 2013).
Table 4. Probit and IVProbit Models Determining Students Chances of Declaring a STEM
Major
Declare a STEM Major
Probit IVProbit
Women Men Women Men
Intercept .33** .16 .35** .15

(.11) (.10) (.11) (.10)
Proportion women math and science teachers .17 .25 .84* .34
(.19) (.22) (.33) (.36)
Proportion black math and science teachers .05 .26 .08 .26
(.24) (.25) (.24) (.25)
Individual-level characteristics
African American student .03 .18* .03 .18*

(.06) (.07) (.06) (.07)
Latino student .11 .10 .11 .10
(.13) (.14) (.13) (.14)
Asian American student .51** .56** .51** .56**
(.09) (.09) (.09) (.09)
American Indian student .06 .51** .06 .51**
(.18) (.18) (.18) (.18)
Receives need-based financial aid .05 .06 .06 .06
(.04) (.04) (.04) (.04)
Receives free/reduced lunch .06 .00 .06 .00
(.06) (.08) (.06) (.08)
Transferred school between 9th and 11th grades .21** .2** .20* .2**
(.08) (.07) (.08) (.07)
First generation college student .06 .18** .06 .18**
(.06) (.07) (.06) (.07)
Plans to attend college .01 .03 .01 .03
(.08) (.07) (.08) (.07)
School-level characteristics
Proportion students on free/reduced lunch .03 .13 .02 .13
(.25) (.29) (.26) (.29)
Rural .13* .17** .13* .17**
(.06) (.06) (.06) (.06)
Suburban .11† .09 .11* .09
(.06) (.06) (.06) (.06)
Proportion white students .33 .05 .31 .05
(.21) (.22) (.21) (.21)
Proportion female students .59 .55 .36 .58
(.92) (1.26) (.93) (1.29)
Proportion students in advanced college track .03 .18 .23 .21
(.32) (.35) (.33) (.35)
Proportion licensed teachers .64* .54 .43 .52
(.29) (.35) (.30) (.36)
(continued)
Table 4. Continued
Probit IVProbit
Women Men Women Men
Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees .86 .70 1.13 .65

(.97) (1.22) (.99) (1.27)
First stage estimation
Proportion women math and science teachers by district .95** .97**
(.05) (.06)
Observations 8,330 6,060 8,330 6,060
Note: Huber-White standard errors clustered by high school in parentheses.

†
p < .10 *p < .05 **p < .01 (two-tailed tests)

association between organizational demography at the school level and the probability of declaring
(Table 4) and graduating with a STEM major (Table 5). Numbers shown without parentheses are
probit coefficients, representing the change in the z-value, or probit index, associated with a one-unit
change in the independent variable. Numbers in parentheses are Huber-White standard errors.
The first models (Table 4) show that, for both men and women, the proportion of math and sci-
ence teachers is not significantly associated with the probability of declaring a STEM major. Indeed,
these models show significant racial differences, with Asian American students more likely to major
in STEM than whites and African American men significantly less likely to do so than white men.
When we implement the instrumental variable approach, however, to control for the possibility
that students are not randomly sorted among high schools in the second set of models, the results in-
dicate that there is a positive and significant association between the proportion of female math and
science teachers in high school and young women’s probability of declaring a STEM major. For
young men, there is no significant association between high school organizational demography and
their probability of declaring a STEM major. These first sets of models in Tables 4 and 5 also reveal
that the proportion of African American math and science teachers is not associated with declaring a
STEM major for young men or women. Regarding the performance of our instrument, the first-stage
results show a significant coefficient for our instrumental variable—the proportion of female math
and science teachers at the district level—which indicates a strong partial correlation of the instru-
ment with the proportion of female math and science teachers in high school. Furthermore, under
the assumption that the instrument is valid, we performed a Wald test of exogeneity, finding that
there is sufficient information in the sample to reject the null hypothesis. Therefore, the use of an in-
strumental variable approach is appropriate (see Appendix C).10
Table 5 focuses on students’ chances of graduating with a STEM major. Here, we see that young
women’s chances of graduating with a STEM major are also enhanced if they attend secondary
10. As a plausibility check, we also tested the proportion of math and science courses taught by women in the high school. To create
the variable measuring the proportion of math and science courses taught by women, we also used the information from high
school classroom personnel files between the years 2000-2004. We used the same criteria to determine subject area as were
used in the calculation of the proportion of female teachers, but instead of calculating gender composition based on teacher
identification code and gender, we selected the number of course sections taught by each teacher and then determined the pro-
portion of course sections taught by women out of all the math and science course sections at each high school. This variable is
a proxy for the exposure to female math and science teachers. Like the proportion of math and science teachers, this variable
ranged from 0-100, with a mean of .64. Results are substantively similar to those with the proportion of teachers, but the magni-
tude of the coefficients is somewhat smaller, which suggests that there is an additional influence of the organizational demogra-
phy above simply a heightened probability of having a woman teaching a math or science course.
Table 5. Probit and IVProbit Models Determining Students Chances of Graduating with a
STEM Major
Graduate with a STEM Major
Probit IVProbit
Women Men Women Men
Intercept .31** .12 .35** .12

(.12) (.12) (.12) (.12)
Proportion women math and science teachers .26 .30 .90* .42
(.22) (.28) (.41) (.46)
(.27) (.29) (.27) (.30)
African American student .06 .26** .05 .26**

(.08) (.09) (.08) (.09)
Latino student .27† .19 .26† .19
(.15) (.17) (.15) (.17)
Asian American student .56** .54** .55** .54**
(.09) (.09) (.09) (.09)
American Indian student .25 .25 .25 .25
(.18) (.19) (.18) (.19)
(.04) (.05) (.04) (.05)
Receives free/reduced lunch .01 .06 .01 .06
(.08) (.10) (.08) (.10)
Transferred school between 9th and 11th grades .18† .25** .17† .25**
(.10) (.07) (.09) (.07)
First generation college student .05 .17* .05 .17*
(.06) (.07) (.06) (.07)
(.09) (.07) (.09) (.07)
(.28) (.35) (.28) (.35)
Rural .09 .18** .09 .19**
(.06) (.07) (.06) (.07)
Suburban .11† .11† .12* .11†
(.06) (.07) (.06) (.07)
(.23) (.25) (.23) (.25)
Proportion female students .86 1.42 .65 1.45
(.91) (1.56) (.94) (1.60)
(.34) (.40) (.36) (.41)
Proportion licensed teachers .71* .76† .52 .73†
(.36) (.40) (.37) (.41)
(continued)
Table 5. Continued
Probit IVProbit
Women Men Women Men
Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees .43 1.01 .73 .95

(.91) (1.42) (.94) (1.50)
(.06) (.06)
Observations 7,330 5,000 7,330 5,000

†

schools with higher proportions of female science and math teachers once the instrumental variable
is included in our models.11 Results in this table show that the racial composition of the school’s
math/science teachers was not significantly associated with young men’s or young women’s chances
of graduating with a STEM major.12
Next, to take an intersectionality approach, we performed a comparative analysis for different ra-
cial groups. Given size limitations of the Asian American, Latino/a, and American Indian populations
in our data, we were only able to estimate models for white and for African American students. In
Tables 6 and 7, we present results from those models for the girls only (results for both African
American and white boys did not show a significant influence of organizational demography; results
are available from authors upon request). Both Tables 6 and 7 show that the dynamic of organiza-
tional demography operates for white female students. White girls are more likely to declare STEM
majors and to graduate with those STEM majors when they attended high schools with proportion-
ately more female math and science teachers, but there is no significant association between organiza-
tional demography and STEM outcomes for African American girls. This situation might be
explained by the high percentage of math and science teachers that are white. For the period of study
in our sample, 52 percent of the math and science teachers were white females, whereas only 10 per-
cent were black. Both Tables 6 and 7 do not display a significant association between the gender
composition of high school math and science faculty and black girls’ probabilities of majoring in or
graduating with STEM degrees. This lack of significance may be due to differences in sample size, as
the number of black female students is substantially smaller than the number of white female stu-
dents. Moreover, the coefficients (.87 for young white women and .75 for young black women for
declaration of a STEM majors, for example) are similar in size. Finally, neither Table 6 nor 7 shows a
11. The dependent variable used here equated physical science and engineering with biology, disciplines that have unequal repre-
sentation of women. We also ran separate models for declaring and/or graduating with biology as a major, and declaring and/
or graduating with a physical science and engineering as a major. On the whole, our findings are consistent for both of these de-
pendent variables when it comes to major declaration, but only for physical sciences/engineering when we consider graduation.
The results for declaring or graduating from a physical sciences/engineering major are stronger than they are for declaring a
STEM major in general (results available from authors).
12. To give the reader some indication of effect size, we have included Appendix D, which presents marginal effects from Tables 4
and 5 for female students. It shows that if the proportion women math and science teachers were 1, girls would have a probabil-
ity of declaring a STEM major of 19 percent and an 18 percent probability of graduating with a STEM major. Both of these
probabilities are higher than female students currently have at the average value of proportion women math and science teach-
ers (.636), representing a 19 percent increase in chances of declaring and a 29 percent increase in chances of graduating with
STEM. These increases are far from being insignificant in magnitude and highlight an important avenue to increase female par-
ticipation in STEM.
Table 6. Probit and IVProbit Models Determining Students Chances of Declaring a STEM
Major
Probit IVProbit Probit IVProbit

Black Women White Women
Intercept .41* .42* .3* .34*

(.20) (.21) (.14) (.14)
Proportion women math and science teachers .27 .75 .13 .87*
(.40) (.58) (.25) (.43)
(.38) (.39) (.37) (.36)

(.08) (.08) (.05) (.05)
Receives free/reduced lunch .14† .14† .12 .13
(.08) (.08) (.12) (.12)
Transferred school between 9th and 11th grades .37** .36** .15 .15
(.13) (.13) (.11) (.11)
First generation college student .02 .02 .03 .02
(.10) (.10) (.08) (.08)
(.13) (.13) (.10) (.10)
(.44) (.45) (.33) (.34)
Rural .28* .29* .09 .10
(.12) (.12) (.06) (.06)
Suburban .13 .14 .11† .12†
(.11) (.11) (.07) (.07)
(.40) (.40) (.26) (.25)
Proportion female students 3.13† 3.16† 1.87† 1.54
1.67 (1.64) (1.07) (1.12)
(.64) (.66) (.37) (.38)
Proportion licensed teachers .36 .16 .61 .42
(.59) (.61) (.39) (.39)
Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees 4.29** 4.38** .31 .15
(1.51) (1.52) (1.03) (1.10)
(.06) (.06)
Observations 2,060 5,750

†
Table 7. Probit and IVProbit Models Determining Students Chances of Graduating with a
STEM Major
Probit IVProbit Probit IVProbit

Black Women White Women
Intercept .43† .43† .29† .35**

(.25) (.25) (.15) (.15)
Proportion women math and science teachers .59 .77 .17 .99*
(.48) (.82) (.27) (.47)
(.48) (.48) (.39) (.39)

(.10) (.10) (.05) (.05)
Receives free/reduced lunch .17† .17† .26* .26*
(.10) (.10) (.13) (.13)
Transferred school between 9th and 11th grades .26† .26† .17 .16
(.15) (.15) (.12) (.12)
First generation college student .03 .03 .04 .04
(.12) (.12) (.09) (.09)
(.17) (.17) (.12) (.12)
(.51) (.52) (.35) (.36)
Rural .22 .22 .06 .07
(.14) (.14) (.08) (.08)
Suburban .22† .22† .08 .09
(.12) (.12) (.07) (.07)
(.52) (.52) (.27) (.27)
Proportion female students 2.77 2.79 1.43 1.10
(2.09) (2.09) (1.02) (1.07)
Proportion students in advanced college track 1.06 .99 .17 .36
(.75) (.78) (.39) (.41)
Proportion licensed teachers .74 .66 .59 .38
(.72) (.78) (.43) (.43)
Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees 3.62* 3.68* .69 .15
(1.84) (1.87) (1.11) (1.17)
(.06) (.06)
Observations 1,580 5,270

†
significant association between the proportion of black math and science teachers and STEM out-
comes for white or for black female students.
Nevertheless, these tables do not answer the question of whether teacher race also might matter,
such that white female students might be more influenced by white female teachers and African
American female students by African American female teachers. Therefore, in results not shown
(available from authors), we tested whether the proportion of white female math and science teachers
was associated with STEM outcomes for white female students and found that it was not. In other
words, it appears that it is sufficient for the teachers to be female for their presence to be associated
with white girls’ choice of major: they do not also need to be white. We also tested whether the per-
centage of black female teachers was significantly associated with STEM outcomes for African
American girls and found non-significant results as well.
DISCUSSION
Drawing on a theory of representative bureaucracy to explain why math and science teachers may
constitute resources for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)

fields, this article has discovered that girls who attend high schools with more female math and
science teachers are more likely to major in STEM fields. Importantly, this influence appears to
be limited to the experience of white girls, with no conclusive influence of organizational demog-
raphy on the trajectories of African American students. It does not appear to be a racially specific
effect for white girls: their STEM outcomes are not associated with the proportion of white fe-
male math and science teachers, but with female math and science teachers more generally.
Furthermore, the probabilities of declaring a STEM major and graduating with a STEM major for
young men do not appear to be significantly associated with the organizational demography of
their high school math and science teachers. We argue that female math and science teachers, as
potential passive and active representatives of white girls’ interests in math and science within the
school bureaucracy, can open STEM fields of study to white girls in ways that male math and sci-
ence teachers may not.
There are several possible mechanisms at work, depending on whether the teachers are passive
representatives within STEM or more active representatives. As passive representatives, female teach-
ers in science and mathematics can be particularly important in overcoming the pervasive normative
association between success in math and science and masculinity as Eileen Byrne (1993), Margaret
Eisenhart, Elizabeth Finkel, and Scott Marion (1996), and Keith Taber (1992) propose. These perva-
sive cognitive associations are significantly more pronounced among white students (O’Brien et al.
2015). More active representation implies that female teachers “open” the field more to girls by push-
ing them to take risks and go against stereotypes (Smith 2000) and by raising young women’s confi-
dence and reducing the uncertainty about the benefits of further education (Nixon and Robinson
1999). Again, as active representatives, it is possible that female math and science teachers alter the
chilly climate of high school departments, in part, by shifting social relations and thereby making
STEM courses more welcoming and enjoyable for white girls or perhaps by sponsoring STEM-
related clubs and activities. Finally, it is also possible that female teachers may use different pedago-
gies (such as student-centered, collaborative, hands-on learning activities), pedagogies that are more
strongly associated with student learning. This last possibility is somewhat attenuated by the fact that
such improved pedagogy would probably benefit all students and not simply young white women.
None of these possibilities is directly testable using quantitative data of this type, but future mixed
method research should consider them.
In particular, in this article we focus on understanding the association between the gender compo-
sition of high school math and science faculty and students’ later probability of majoring in STEM
and graduating with a STEM degree. Overall, our findings show that white students’ gender interacts
with the demographic composition of high school math and science departments to foster success in
STEM majors at the postsecondary level. Notably, these dynamics appear to have no significant
relationship to white or African American young men’s choice of major or probability of graduation
with STEM degrees, results that are encouraging from a policy perspective and instructive for the the-
ory of representative bureaucracy. This theory predicted that there might be a negative association
between the percentage of female math and science teachers and young men’s STEM outcomes, an
association produced, in part, if active representation on the part of female math and science teachers
harms young men’s pathways into STEM by privileging young women. It is possible that this lack of
findings is due to the other societal supports that young men are able to find for their interest in
STEM, support that comes from family and friends, for example. It is also possible that female teach-
ers are using different pedagogies within the classroom that are able to engage young men in math
and science topics, engagement that offsets any otherwise negative influence that female math and
science teachers might have on their STEM plans.
The non-significant findings with regard to organizational demography and African American
young women merit some attention as well. It is possible that, as with young men, there are other so-
cietal supports that encourage the potential interest that African American women might have in
STEM (Hanson 2004, 2007; O’Brien et al. 2015). An alternative is that the presence of female math

and science teachers—even co-ethnic female math and science teachers—may not be sufficient to
offset the chilly climate that young women of color might face in science and math classrooms, but
that a host of other supports are necessary as well. It is also possible, given the smaller sample size for
African American students, that the findings are not entirely conclusive due to that sample size.
These possibilities are excellent pathways for future research, including the necessity to design a study
explicitly focused on testing the multitude of intersectionalities for these relationships and outcomes.
This is especially the case with regard to the potential influence of African American female math and
science teachers on African American female students. Although we found null results in this regard,
there is not much power to detect such a relationship with our population.
This study provides evidence regarding the importance of the substantial presence of female math
and science teachers on young white women’s academic careers in STEM. Importantly, our research
demonstrates the analytic importance of acknowledging the influence of early life experiences on later
outcomes. In the case of choice of college major, many previous studies have tended to look at pat-
terns of influence after many students have already formed their intentions regarding college major,
when there is less variability in the potential pathways that students will follow. Thus, we offer evi-
dence that young men’s and women’s choices to enter a STEM field are not solely influenced by stu-
dents’ college experiences. Our findings support Valian’s (1998) argument that current gender
inequalities are truly indicative of a progression of small events that accumulate across an individual’s
educational trajectory, as well as evidence that high school is a critical time period for the formation
of career and major field of study aspirations. In underlining the importance of high schools, we em-
phasize a point that other scholars have previously argued (Legewie and DiPrete 2014a, 2014b;
Maltese and Tai 2011). Indeed, our results indicate one piece of the explanation for why white
women major in STEM less frequently than men do, an explanation that spans many institutions.
When considering the results, there are some methodological limitations to keep in mind. First,
the relationship between female math and science teachers in high school and success in STEM ma-
jors is present and significant for white women but not necessarily great in magnitude. This is to be
expected, to some extent, because notions of gender expectations can be derived not only from teach-
ers in high school, but from students’ families and from broader societal forces (Ridgeway and
Correll 2004). Second, we are unable to pinpoint the exact mechanism driving these results. Indeed,
given the limitations of the available data, we cannot identify whether it is passive, active, or a combi-
nation of both types of representation by female high school math and science teachers that increases
white girls’ chances of declaring and graduating with a STEM major once in college. Unraveling the
particular influence is beyond the scope of this quantitative project and becomes material for future
qualitative research. Ideally, we would also have information regarding the occupations of the parents
of the students in the sample, but this information is not included in their administrative records.
Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge that we can only generalize our results to the students
in this study due to the nature of our sample being restricted to the pool of students who attended
secondary public school in North Carolina and later pursued their undergraduate studies in the UNC
system. It is possible that there is some selection bias due to the fact that some students attend col-
lege outside the state: as less than 6 percent of graduating seniors intended to attend an out-of-state
institution (North Carolina Department of Public Instruction 2009), we consider this to be a rela-
tively mild bias.
Our findings point to the importance of focusing on the secondary educational careers years—as
well as policies that maintain retention during college—in combating the under-representation of
women in the STEM fields. This is not an issue that can be solved by simply reaching students once
they are already in college: changes to the structural characteristics of the secondary schools children
attend can make profound impacts in the equitable demographic distribution of students who pursue
STEM fields. Our findings show evidence that suggests that a policy that advocates for even more fe-
male secondary math and science teachers in high schools would be effective in increasing the num-
ber of white female STEM majors. Based upon the evidence presented here, policies that increase

and ensure widespread representation of female teachers of math and science could help reduce the
STEM declaration gender gap among whites, as well as the gap in those graduating with STEM de-
grees. In doing so, we share the position others have previously stated (e.g., Riegle-Crumb and
Moore 2013) that the observed relationship between gender inequalities in different social settings—
in this case high school faculties and college majors—serves to highlight the interconnecting social
system of gender that produces cumulatively large inequalities.
Appendix A. SAT Math and Reading Scores of Students who Did and Did Not Matriculate
into the UNC System
Total Did Not Matriculated Young Young Young Young
who Planned Matriculate into the Women who Women who Men who Men who
to Attend into the UNC System Did Not Did Matriculate Did Not Did Matriculate
4-year UNC System Matriculate into the Matriculate into the
College and into the UNC System into the UNC System
Took UNC System UNC System
SAT
SAT Math 48.8 45.6 52.4 44.4 50.7 47.1 54.7

SAT Reading 47.8 44.9 51.1 44.7 50.5 45.2 51.9
Note: Both SAT Math and SAT Reading range from 0 to 80.
Appendix B. Goodness of Fit Probit and Logit Models

Obs Model AIC BIC
Declare a STEM major Women 8,331 Probit 6,768.91 7,078.13

Logit 6,769.89 7,079.11
Men 6,056 Probit 6,374.66 6,669.84
Logit 6,375.87 6,671.05
Graduate with a STEM major Women 7,325 Probit 5,420.14 5,723.70
Logit 5,422.57 5,726.13
Men 4,996 Probit 5,025.14 5,311.87
Logit 5,025.50 5,312.23
Notes: AIC stands for Akaike information criterion. BIC stands for Bayesian information criterion. Given two models, the one with the smaller
AIC or BIC fits the data better.
Appendix C. Wald Test of Exogeneity to the Instrumented Variable

Test of Exogeneity Declare a STEM Major Graduate with a STEM Major
Ho: Variables are Exogenous Women Men Women Men
Proportion female Prob > chi2 Prob > chi2 ¼ Prob > chi2 ¼ Prob > chi2 ¼
math and ¼ .0125 .7741 .0455 .7675
science teachers
Black Women White Women Black Women White Women
Proportion female Prob > chi2 ¼ Prob > chi2 ¼ Prob > chi2 ¼ Prob > chi2 ¼
math and .2817 .0338 .76680 .0312
science teachers

Appendix D. Marginal Effects for Female Students from Tables 4 and 5
Variable dy/dx
Declare Graduate
Proportion women math and science teachers .19 .18

African American student* .01 .01
Latino student* .02 .05
Asian American student* .14 .14
American Indian student* .01 .04
Transferred school between 9th and 11th grades* .04 .03
Rural* .03 .02
Suburban* .03 .02
Note: (*) dy/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1.
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46 Demographic Characteristics of High School Math and Science Teachers and Girls (Stearns, 2016)

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Social Problems, 2016, 63, 87–110

Demographic Characteristics of High

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K E Y W O R D S : gender and education; representative bureaucracy; math/science education;

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THEORETICAL APPROACH: WHY MIGHT TEACHERS MATTER?

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Teachers as Passive Representatives

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Teachers as Active Representatives

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We focus on a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse sample of 21,300 college-bound

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Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Variables Used in Probit and IVProbit Estimations

Women Men Women Men

Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std.

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Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Variables Used in Probit and IVProbit Estimations

Black Women White Women Black Women White Women

Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std.

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where i ¼ 1; :::; N, j ¼ 1; :::; 322, and k ¼ 1; :::; 15.

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where wj is endogenous if u1 and v2 are correlated.

Women Men Women Men

Intercept .33** .16 .35** .15

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Women Men Women Men

Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees .86 .70 1.13 .65

Note: Huber-White standard errors clustered by high school in parentheses.

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Women Men Women Men

Intercept .31** .12 .35** .12

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Women Men Women Men

Proportion of teachers with advanced degrees .43 1.01 .73 .95

Note: Huber-White standard errors clustered by high school in parentheses.

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Probit IVProbit Probit IVProbit

Intercept .41* .42* .3* .34*

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Note: Huber-White standard errors clustered by high school in parentheses.

Probit IVProbit Probit IVProbit

Intercept .43† .43† .29† .35**

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Note: Huber-White standard errors clustered by high school in parentheses.

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SAT Math 48.8 45.6 52.4 44.4 50.7 47.1 54.7

Appendix B. Goodness of Fit Probit and Logit Models

Declare a STEM major Women 8,331 Probit 6,768.91 7,078.13

Appendix C. Wald Test of Exogeneity to the Instrumented Variable

Ho: Variables are Exogenous Women Men Women Men

Black Women White Women Black Women White Women

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Proportion women math and science teachers .19 .18

Note: (*) dy/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1.

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Intercept .33 .16 .35 .15

Intercept .31 .12 .35 .12