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Economic, occupational, and social shifts in rural economies have influenced nuanced changes in the educational and occupational aspirations of rural adolescent women and men. However, there is limited contemporary research that examines the aspirations of rural adolescents at the beginning of the 21st century. Drawing on a sample of 8,756 rural adolescents in the United States, we examine how familial, geographic, and economic variables influence gender-related differences in educational and occupational aspirations. Findings revealed significant gender differences, favoring girls, in youth's educational aspirations, occupational aspirations, and aspirations for nontraditional careers. Results highlight the importance of contextual variables such as parental expectations, family income, and motivation variables in predicting gender-related aspirations of rural youth.

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Mentoring in faculty development is seen as a catalyst to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) leadership. STEM faculty leaders are organizational influencers with or without formal authority or appointments. Within the fields of STEM, mentoring is often construed as more than senior faculty mentoring junior faculty. This study explores the perspectives of 13 professors and chairs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) on faculty mentoring based on semi-structured interviews conducted by the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership (CASL). The main questions addressed in this study are: What, if any, mentoring styles or strategies do STEM faculty leaders acknowledge and employ? What specific leadership styles are associated with mentoring in HBCUs for STEM faculty who acknowledge mentoring as an aspect of their leadership? The findings of this study suggest that STEM faculty leaders who adopt transformational, servant leadership, and intellectual styles find value in mentoring.

Concerns over student retention and development within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) higher education present a need for research that examines educational caring in STEM leadership. This work purports that senior academic administrative leadership's positional influence and caring intelligence are necessary to cultivate and sustain caring STEM environments. Building on cross-disciplinary scholarship on academic caring, the STEM Caring Intelligence Framework for Academic Administrative Leadership is proposed as five interrelated dimensions of caring intelligence: STEM caring, academic caring, administrative caring, leadership caring, and champion-driven caring. The proposed conceptual framework and a thematic analysis were used to examine caring intelligence within the interview transcripts of seven provosts at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), who were identified as STEM supportive. Atlas TI software was used for management of the data, coding, and assistance with thematic analysis. Extending previous scholarship tested with HBCU deans, the findings substantiate the relevance of the framework for understanding characteristics of STEM caring intelligence of provosts serving as chief academic officers. All seven provosts' reflections on STEM leadership promoted at least one of the five dimensions of caring intelligence that were proposed in the framework. STEM caring and champion-driven caring were found to be the most common dimensions present in the provosts' reflections on their STEM leadership and efforts to broaden participation. Thus, the reflections of the participating HBCU provosts provided a narrative for the practice and study of caring in STEM leadership. Implications for future research are discussed.