Exploring the Community Cultural Wealth and Science Capital of Parents in a Family STEM Program

While parents and caregivers are seen as an important factor in the development of science identity building, few studies have explored the contextual and capacity-based factors that influence parents’ support of their children in STEM. Parental STEM resources can be explored through the community cultural wealth framework which describes the types of knowledge, connections, and capabilities a community possesses. This study explored the impacts of a year-long, museum-based family STEM program on the parents’ community cultural wealth and science capital through surveys and interviews. The results suggest that the program was able to have a positive impact on the capital and habitus of the parent participants. Having access to parents who promote career awareness and encourage career exploration has emerged as an important type of cultural capital. By engaging families as a whole, rather than youth as individuals, programs may be able to more effectively support youth science identity and career aspirations. Sustained, engaging, family-based programs out-of-school, and potentially in schools, are one way to approach the need for more youth, particularly women and those from underrepresented groups, to pursue STEM careers.