| Popis: |
This paper explores why gender and racial segregation in college major choices increase when comparing students’ initial major choices with those at the end of their first year of college. Two well-supported previous explanations are that students have diverging individual preferences and that women and students of color are pushed out of majors that have a chilly climate or few students who share their backgrounds. This study uses longitudinal interviews with 50 students (N=146 interviews) to qualitatively explore whether any additional mechanisms can explain the increased sorting during college. I find that social networks tend to be segregated by race and gender; when students start questioning whether they want to switch majors, their friends’ and family members’ majors/professions provide opportunities to pull students into new fields in which more people of their background are located. Additionally, students receive and give advice that is biased by a student’s gender and race/ethnicity, lending support that implicit bias, cultural stereotypes, and stereotype threat may play additional roles in explaining observed segregation. Studies that continue to primarily rely on individual-level differences in preferences will be unable to fully explain and disrupt this inequality that perpetuates far beyond college graduation. |
