Embarking on and Persisting in Scientific Fields of Study: Cultural capital, gender, and curriculum along the science pipeline

In this paper, we examine the nature and extent of participation of Canadian young women and men in science-based academic fields. Informed by Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction, we focus on three key stages—senior secondary school, the transition to post-secondary studies, and the post-secondary completion stage—to determine whether and how the interrelationships of gender, cultural capital, course completion in senior secondary school, timing of decisions, and initial participation in post-secondary education lead to the completion of science-related undergraduate degrees. Through correspondence analyses of 10 years of longitudinal data with 1,055 respondents, we extend the findings of cross-sectional studies that examine only one aspect of this longitudinal story by showing how the intersection between organisational structures (institutional and disciplinary) and cultural capital transmitted by the family shapes the opportunity structures of access to scientific fields of study by young women and men.