How Can They Know What They Don’t Know? The Beliefs and Experiences of Rural School Counselors about STEM Career Advising

Abstract

<jats:p>Many factors contribute to the educational challenges students face in rural areas, including a lack of funding compared to urban and suburban schools and a lack of role models pursuing postsecondary education. School counselors in all settings are trained to provide education to students about the postsecondary options in demand. College and career counseling with students and families in rural areas requires unique understanding of the rural characteristics that shape community life and family dynamics. National attention on rural education has highlighted a particular need for advising into STEM career fields. Using a phenomenological approach, the researchers examine the beliefs and experiences of eight school counselors working in rural schools regarding their lived experiences of advising students in their rural areas about careers in STEM. Three themes about STEM-focused career development emerged from the interviews with the school counselors, a lack of opportunities and resources, challenging local influences, and ideas for much needed place-based innovations. Implications are discussed for several key players with the ability to improve and increase STEM advising for rural students. Examples include the following: for practicing school counselors, intentional career counseling efforts that include rural families; for counselor educators, the addition of rural field placements and assignments focused on rural student career needs; and for rural communities, combining the school counselor’s efforts with local business and industry to highlight and increase STEM career awareness for students and their families.</jats:p>

STEM Career Interest of Kazakhstani Middle and High School Students

“…This result is consistent with results of Chachashvili et al [71], they found those students who live in a village have more interest in STEM careers. Peterson et al [76] explained this relation in their work as rural communities believe that STEM education can solve some of their very difficult economic and social problems, therefore most rural students are interested in STEM careers [76,77].…”

STEM Pathways of Rural and Small-Town Students: Opportunities to Learn, Aspirations, Preparation, and College Enrollment

“…In contrast to their city and suburban counterparts, rural and small-town students may encounter fewer college graduates, limited access to high-speed internet, and fewer job opportunities (Carr & Kefalas, 2009;Hunter et al, 2020) although they tend to benefit from close-knit relationships within families, schools, and communities (Byun et al, 2012;Lyson, 2002). Furthermore, prior research has documented that rural students tend to lack opportunities to learn (OTL) in STEM, including limited access to advanced math coursework (Anderson & Chang, 2011;Irvin et al, 2017;Reeves, 2012) and STEM-oriented career-advising support (Grimes et al, 2019). Although existing work has documented limited STEM OTL for rural students, it is still unclear how OTL in STEM are longitudinally associated with STEM career aspirations and postsecondary STEM degree enrollment for rural students.…”

Reconsidering Rural-Nonrural College Enrollment Gaps: The Role of Socioeconomic Status in Geographies of Opportunity

“…There may be differences in the college counseling that is able to be offered in rural high schools, which are important factors in predicting college enrollment (Engberg & Gilbert, 2014 ). Counselors in rural areas have challenges of opportunities and resources (Grimes et al, 2019 ) even as they have more responsibility for college advising relative to other locales because many colleges do not visit rural schools (Salazar et al, 2021 ) and college access organizations and related activities like FAFSA workshops are more often in urban or suburban areas. Rural schools, many of which are small and have high proportions of low-income students, are less often able to provide a robust college-preparatory curriculum (Brown & Schafft, 2011 ; Koricich et al, 2018 ).…”