Defining Equality: Gendered Patterms of Advanced High School Course-Taking.

The gender gap in high school Physics course-taking remains quite impervious to change, even in the midst of progress towards equity in math course-taking. Part of the explanation lies in the larger scope of science, encompassing both the biological and physical sciences. Prior research on the greater relative representation of women in the biological sciences in college and the labor force suggests that for a variety of reasons, this area is more appealing to women. This paper explores whether this gendered pattern is manifest in high school science course-taking, such that there is a higher representation of female students in Biology II courses compared to Physics. Analyses using data from NELS 1988-2000 confirm this trend, and reveal that when considering Biology II and Physics together into a broader category of advanced science, the gender gap disappears. Additionally, there is a strong link between taking Biology II in high school and declaring a biological science major in college. The strength of this relationship is of the same magnitude as the link between taking Physics in high school and declaring a physical science major. Thus, Biology II serves as an important but less acknowledged mechanism for retaining female students in a science educational trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]