Studies of education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and math commonly use a pipeline metaphor to conceptualize forward movement and persistence. However, the “STEM pipeline” carries implicit assumptions regarding length, contents, and perceived purpose. Using the National Survey of College Graduates, we empirically measure each of these dimensions. First, we show that a majority of STEM workers report skills training throughout their careers, suggesting no clear demarcation between education and work. Second, we show that using on-the-job expertise requirements paints (...) a very different portrait of the STEM workforce—and persistence in it. Third, we show that STEM-educated workers are well-prepared for but dissatisfied with non-STEM jobs, complicating our understanding of leaving. Collectively, these results recommend expanded conceptions of STEM education and careers and contribute to studies of science and engineering workforce transitions and diversity. (shrink)

Can epistemologies anchor processes of social inequality? In this paper, we consider how epistemological dominance in science, engineering, and health fields perpetuates disadvantages for students who enter higher education with alternative epistemologies. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Native American students enrolled at two US research universities who adhere to or revere indigenous epistemologies, we find that epistemological dominance in SE&H degree programs disadvantages students through three processes. First, it delegitimizes Native epistemologies and marginalizes and silences students who value them. Second, (...) in the process of imparting these dominant scientific epistemologies, SE&H courses sometimes require students to participate in pedagogical practices that challenge indigenous ways of knowing. Third, students encounter epistemological imperialism: most students in the sample are working to earn SE&H degrees in order to return to tribal communities to “give back,” yet, because the US laws regulating the practice of SE&H extend onto tribal lands, students must earn credentials in epistemologies that devalue, delegitimate, and threaten indigenous knowledge ways to practice on tribal lands. We examine how students navigate these experiences, discuss the implications of these findings for SE&H education, and describe how epistemological dominance may serve as a mechanism of inequality reproduction more broadly. (shrink)