Exploring rural and small-town students’ pathways to STEM and factors related to their STEM engagement

This study extends Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory to examine how interacting social and institutional contexts shape rural students’ engagement with STEM in Kazakhstan, a country experiencing widening rural-urban disparities. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 23 rural and small-town students enrolled in STEM-related university programmes, the analysis explores how micro-, meso-, exo-, and macro-level systems converge to shape educational trajectories. The findings suggest that rural students’ STEM pathways are not shaped by isolated ecological levels but by interlocking mechanisms linking family expectations, school resources, teacher shortages, gender norms, and broader structural inequalities affecting rural schooling. Constraints such as limited parental familiarity with STEM careers, teacher shortages, and gendered expectations narrow rural students’ perceived horizons of possibility. At the same time, teacher mentorship and supportive school environments emerge as critical relational resources sustaining aspirations and facilitating transitions to higher education. Building on Bronfenbrenner’s framework, the study advances an ecological interpretation of rural STEM engagement that foregrounds cross-level mechanisms shaping aspirations, belonging, and persistence in STEM pathways. By situating these dynamics within Kazakhstan’s post-socialist rural context, the study contributes to international scholarship on rural STEM participation while distinguishing widely observed patterns of rural educational inequality from context-specific dynamics.