Knowing the right stuff attrition, gender, and scientific literacy (reading)

Knowing the "Right Stuff": Attrition, Gender, and Scientific Literacy
Author(s): Laurie A. McDade
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2, Women, Culture, and Education
(Jun., 1988), pp. 93-114
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Knowing the "Right Stuff":
Attrition, Gender, and Scientific Literacy
LAURIEA. MCDADE
Miami University(Ohio)
Thestudy of college retentionand attrition in scienceand mathematicshas
focusedpredominantlyon theindexingof students'attributes.Littleresearch
has attendedto disciplinaryenvironmentsof teachingand learning or stu-
dents' understandingsofattrition. Thisarticleuses quantitativeand qualita-
tivedatato locatepatternsofattritionbehaviorsand thesense undergraduate
womenand menmakeof theevent. Theconclusionprovidesa criticalanalysis
ofgenderorientationstoattritionand scientificliteracy.RETENTIONAND
ATTRITION, SCIENCEAND MATHEMATICS LEARNING, HIGHER
EDUCATION, GENDERANALYSIS, QUANTITATIVE-QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
The focus of research on women's achievement in science and math-
ematics in U.S. colleges and universities predominantly has centered
upon the individual attributes of women student learners (DeBoer
1984a;Lee and Ware 1985, 1986; Matyas 1986;Naismith 1985; Parelius
1982). The emphasis has been to locate those gender-specific attributes
that when experienced in institutional learning environments are
thought to hamper their retention. Biological and social causes have
often been pitted against each other to explain women students' in-
ferior performance and underrepresentation in science and mathe-
matics (Benbow and Stanley 1980; Eccles and Jacobs 1986). The pur-
pose of the research has been to locate those criticaljunctures of wom-
en's and men's intellectual development, connect them with academic
achievement and, thus, predict which are crucial to retention.
In contrast, analyses of the structural conditions that shape learning
patterns in science and mathematics disciplines have been minimal
(Project on the Status and Education of Women 1982). When exami-
nations of structural conditions have occurred, they have informed a
liberal, "fix-it" paradigm whereby "chilly climates" might be warmed
up so as to be more hospitable to promote women's achievement
along with men's. The research, then, has been instrumentalist in that
it works from a "tinkering" perspective, one that recommends strat-
egies to assist in the adjustment of women students to the environ-
ment or in the moderate adjustment of certain environmental features
to be less alienating to women students. As a result, research analyses
have lacked a critical perspective on the gender-related aspects of the
Laurie A. McDade is Assistant Professor of Education, Department of Educational
Leadership, Miami University (Ohio), Oxford, Ohio.
93

Anthropology&EducationQuarterly
experiences of students in science and mathematics, and studies of re-
tention and attrition focus minimally on the original voices of students
and the sense they attempt to make of their attrition experiences.
This article will attempt a critical analysis of the gender-related as-
pects of attrition among undergraduate women and men in chemistry
and mathematics disciplines. Itwill combine performance data on two
freshman cohorts tracked from high school through four years of un-
dergraduate study, with interview data gathered among undergrad-
uate female and male attrition students.
The research was conducted at "State University"' and the design
of the study includes both quantitative and qualitative components.
Data on students in two freshman cohorts for the entry years of 1981
and 1982 (n = 379) were collected from admissions, registration, and
departmental college files of chemistry and mathematics majors, and
descriptive indicators were tabulated. Retention and attrition profiles
were developed from data sets on high school and collegiate perfor-
mance variables such as grades, rank, attendance, and standardized
test scores. Data from student portfolios also were used to determine
predictors of retention and attrition of women and men students. In-
terviews were conducted with women and men "attriters," those who
left the chemistry and mathematics majors prior to graduation. From
this group a sample of thirty participants2 was obtained for extended,
open-ended, informal interviews in which students were asked to
"talk about" their high school and college experiences and the event
of attrition in their college lives. These interviews were coded to define
anthropological descriptors for domain analysis, a standard ethno-
graphic technique for the organization of qualitative data (Spradley
1980).
The quantitative profiles of State University's chemistry and math-
ematics majors from which the interview sample was drawn indicated
that a small gender difference existed in the retention and attrition of
undergraduate women and men, that is, proportionate to men, more
women enrolled and also attrited from both majors. The gender dif-
ference in retention and attrition was not quantitatively significant,
however. In addition, the quantitative data on high school and college
student performance indicated that more within-gender group varia-
tion occurred than between female and male groups. From the perfor-
mance variables chosen as possible predictors of retention or attrition
for this group, few gender-distinctive patterns could be determined.
The qualitative explanations provided by women and men stu-
dents, however, yielded gender-distinct retrospective perceptions of
their attrition experiences. Most prominent in the qualitative data
were the gendered understandings of career, of self, and of the struc-
ture of learning at the university. For undergraduate women, attrition
from chemistry and mathematics disciplines was an internalized ex-
perience. The attrition process as described by them entailed an aban-
94 Volume19, 1988

Knowingthe"RightStuff"
donment of career commitments and professional identities, a read-
justment of self-images as competent students, and a negative reac-
tion to and evaluation of the structural conditions of chemistry and
mathematics study as part of an effort to manage the intense distress
of attrition. Women faced their attrition experiences individually and
explained them in particularly individualistic terms emphasizing that
their own shortcomings resulted in feelings of incompetence and dis-
appointment.
In contrast to women's emphasis on personal shortcomings, men's
explanations of attrition emphasized their efforts to enhance their per-
sonal attributes by making the most of their talents. Attrition for un-
dergraduate men from chemistry and mathematics disciplines was
presented as an externalized experience, a pursuit of better opportun-
ities to develop their interests, to improve their intellectual and ma-
terial well-being, and to bring their life work closer to their ethical and
pragmatic standards. Although the choices to leave their original ma-
jors led them to self-examination, they did not enumerate internal def-
icits as causes of or contributions to their decisions. These decisions
were tied to external factors, and the men maintained that they as-
sessed their attributes and evaluated their chances in professional op-
tions and found that chemistry or mathematics study was not the best
choice for them. Thus, it was men who left chemistry and mathematics
and not the disciplinary studies that left them behind. When men
noted undesirable structural conditions of study in chemistry and
mathematics departments they did not underscore them as contribu-
tory factors to their decisions.
Thus, for different reasons-gendered reasons, I would suggest-
neither undergraduate women nor men took issue with the professo-
rial pedagogy and the administrative requirements of their chemistry
and mathematics experiences. Women maintained that they were
aware of their powerlessness to improve their performance or the con-
ditions under which it was evaluated. Men, not addressing questions
of powerlessness in chemistry or mathematics, directed their power as
students to locating disciplines "better suited" to their abilities. Both
women and men attriters from chemistry and mathematics majors de-
parted in silence without questioning or contesting departmental pro-
cesses or procedures. Both women and men attriters knew of others
who were doing poorly in their courses but did not share experiences
or strategies with them. Thus, I would suggest that both groups of
women and men attriters remained individually powerless and si-
lenced in taking collective action and in questioning the structure of
knowing the "right stuff" by departmental standards.
In what follows I first discuss the attrition profiles for women and
men in chemistry and mathematics at State University. Then, I turn to
a discussion of interview findings of gendered perceptions of the at-
trition experience.
McDade 95

Anthropology&EducationQuarterly Volume19, 1988
Attrition Profiles of Women and Men in Chemistry and Math
In the years 1981 and 1982 the freshman enrollments at the under-
graduate campus of State University totaled 4,320 and 3,988, respec-
tively. Of these cohorts, women numbered 2,446 (57%) in 1981 and
2,268 (57%)in 1982. Correspondingly, the men totaled 1,874 (43%)in
1981 and 1,720 in 1982. These numbers reflect a national trend of
higher enrollment of women at the nation's undergraduate schools in
the early 1980s.
Of the total freshman cohorts entering State University during these
years, 4.6% chose chemistry or mathematics as a designated major.
The national average for such majors among entering freshmen is
2.5% annually. Of State University's 1981 and 1982 chemistry and
mathematics freshman enrollees (n = 379), 47% completed their un-
dergraduate education with degrees in those fields. The combined
number of graduates (n = 179) for these years was 50%men and 50%
women. Correspondingly, 53% (n = 200) of the incoming freshmen
dropped out or left the disciplines, 56% of whom were women and
44%of whom were men.
The rate of attrition for 1981 and 1982 freshwomen chemistry and
mathematics majors exceeded their retention rate by a five to four ra-
tio. Within the male group the ratio of attrition to retention was equiv-
alent, indicating a higher within-group success rate for men than for
women. Thus, although women enrolled at higher numbers in chem-
istry and mathematics, they also dropped from the major in higher
numbers than men.3 This gender difference, however, was not statis-
tically significant.
Female Attrition: The Question of the Competent Self
Interview data with a small group of women chemistry leavers, n =
9, and mathematics leavers, n = 8, whose default majors4 were rep-
resentative of the larger attrition group, provided explanations for
leaving original majors.5These qualitative data yield a preliminary un-
derstanding of the attrition pattern among women.
College women's descriptions of leaving chemistry and mathemat-
ics may be clustered into three general domains or categories: the
abandonment of pursuing an idealized professional future; the read-
justment of perceptions of the intellectual self as competent and ca-
pable in their disciplines; and the negative reaction to and evaluation
of external conditions in their departments and the impact on their
performances.
The first cluster of understandings reflects college women's aban-
donment of an earlier ideal regarding a professional future in their
chosen discipline. In chemistry this ideal focused on a career in the
"hard sciences" and was propelled by a proficiency in high school sci-
ence and mathematics. Their professional goals were supported by the
convictions they held with regard to their scientific abilities and, also,
96

by those held by parents, teachers, and counselors who believed there
were exceptional opportunities for women in the sciences. Often cited
by these women chemistry leavers was the initial pursuit of an ideal-
ized career that offered them a professional identity that "seemed to
be what they really wanted." Consequently, entering female college
freshmen majored in chemistry because they believed themselves to
be headed for medical or dental school or toward research and devel-
opment work that would be both a contribution to humankind and a
contribution to their goal of a well-paying career. On the humanitarian
side, college women maintained fantasies about discovering a cure for
cancer or developing an answer to toxic waste disposal; on the self-
interested side, they maintained aspirations for professional achieve-
ments marked by the number of patents they obtained for their em-
ployers or by their positions and comfortable salaries in the chemical
industry. Thus, via an undergraduate chemistry major, these college
women believed they would be well-prepared and well-compensated
for practicing medicine and dentistry or for conducting scientific re-
search. However, they reported that they grew progressively disap-
pointed in the confining and narrow demands of the chemistry major
in which their grades indicated mediocre to poor performances.
Women mathematics attriters' professional ideal focused sharply on
a "love for mathematics" and a "joy in working with numbers." Col-
lege women who majored in mathematics talked about their prefer-
ence for numbers over words throughout pre-collegiate schooling and
saw the college mathematics major as the "natural" and "logical" ex-
tension of this preference. Thus, their selection of mathematics was
not an instrumental one, as with women chemistry majors. Rather,
their selection of mathematics was an expression of an inner sensibility
of the appropriateness of the major for their talents. The selection was
not triggered by a preference for a career but by an affection for and
ability to work "better with numbers" than with words. Women math-
ematics leavers believed themselves to have "a math mind" (Strauss
1983) and selected their major because of an affinity for the subject.
What they eventually would do with a math degree was obscure, and
this fact became of increasing concern as they progressed in their un-
dergraduate studies. In addition, when they began to question their
abilities there was a "change of heart" toward the discipline and a
growing disappointment with it. They discovered that much of what
they had liked in precollegiate mathematics was not to be found in
their college mathematics courses. For the women mathematics attri-
ters who remained committed to a mathematics interest, there was a
redirection toward disciplines that emphasized the applications of
mathematics rather than what students labeled "the theoretical and
pure abstractions" in their increasingly advanced mathematics
courses.
This first cluster of understandings reveals the limited information
with which these women students composed notions of an ideal
McDade 97

professional life. They rarely knew of an adult woman working in their
disciplines who was not on a high school or university faculty. Addi-
tionally, most parental guidance and assistance came from fathers
who were knowledgeable of or actually working in the fields. Mothers
were supportive but knew little of the professional environment into
which their daughters were seeking entry, since most did not partici-
pate professionally in the paid labor force. Thus, chemistry and math-
ematics study in college provided the first forum for testing "the way
it really was out there."
The second cluster of understandings in the women's experience of
attrition centered on the self as a competent, academically capable and
willingly persistent student of science and mathematics. College
women who chose to major in chemistry or mathematics usually per-
ceived their undertaking as particularly challenging. The 1981 and
1982 women chemistry and mathematics leavers at State University
originally held an image of self that valued achievement in the "rig-
orous" sciences. They anticipated a more strenuous study routine
than that required of a liberal arts major. To be less than successful
jeopardized their perceptions of self as confident and competent col-
lege students.
All of the women chemistry attriters who were interviewed had
been high achievers in science and mathematics in high school. They
all expected to maintain above-average grade point averages in col-
lege. However, several statistical tests on cumulative averages for the
women chemistry group indicated that the "attriting" or leaving
group's cumulative grade point mean was significantly below that of
the graduating group. This difference in chemistry attriters' averages
may be traced to precollegiate success predictors. Statistics profiling
the graduating and attriting female groups indicated that college
women chemistry students who persisted to graduation had a
stronger precollegiate academic background and significantly higher
college cumulative grade point averages than did the chemistry attri-
ters.6Women chemistry leavers who perceived their precollegiate per-
formance in science and mathematics to be an adequate preparation
for college experienced disappointment and a challenge to their self-
image.
Like the chemistry attriters, the attrition decision for women math-
ematics majors also involved a readjustment of their self-image as
"math wiz kids," as one woman student described it. Similar to the
female chemistry cohort, the women mathematics leavers' cumulative
averages were significantly below that of the graduating group;7how-
ever, there were fewer significant differences within the mathematics
cohort in regard to precollegiate performance and college grades than
for the chemistry cohort. Yet, interviews with mathematics attriters in-
dicated that readjusting images of oneself as intellectually capable in
the math majorwas as frustrating for them as for those college women
who left chemistry.8
98 Volume19, 1988

In readjusting perceptions of their intellectual selves, both women
chemistry and women mathematics attriters identified their noncom-
petitive performance as a crucial factor in self-selecting out of their
original majors. For example, they were unhappy with their grades,
and they were very conscious of how their grades compared to others'
in their classes. In fact, most women who left these majors described
their futile attempts to improve ailing GPAs as debilitating indicators
of their inferior intelligence, poor study habits, poor high school prep-
aration, or general inability to remain confident and competent at their
tasks as students. All of them saw this struggle to be competent in
their discipline as an indication of an internal inadequacy for which
they needed to compensate by moving into an area in which they
might excel or, at least, achieve a more satisfactory cumulative aver-
age. In doing so, the women attriters looked to other college arenas for
an environment more conducive to their goals for achievement.
The third cluster of college women's understandings of their attri-
tion concerns students' perceptions of the external conditions of
chemistry and mathematics study. The conditions believed to be ex-
ternal to the women students themselves and over which they be-
lieved they had minimal control included the organization of courses,
the dynamics of professorial pedagogy, student-professor relation-
ships, and the atmosphere of competition among students. Women
attriters strongly believed that these conditions contributed to their
undesirable grades and their subsequent decisions to leave their ma-
jors. Though women students identified their own shortcomings with
regard to achieving success in the chemistry and mathematics majors,
they also maintained that little assistance was available to help them
address these shortcomings. Additionally, many asserted that the
structure of the chemistry and mathematics departments at State Uni-
versity contributed to their difficulties. In particular, students faulted
the structure of the classes and the curricula: the large lectures with
enrollments in the hundreds; the "pointless," "unproductive," and
"confusing" recitations; the independent rather than collaborative
work; the poorly written textbooks; the tests that rewarded memori-
zation rather than application; and the suspected "hidden curricu-
lum" to "weed out one-third of a class by mid-term." These were
viewed by the attriters as detracting from their ability to perform and
led them to describe the environment as "isolating," "claustropho-
bic," "tediously frightening," "unconducive to learning," and "cut-
throat competitive." Although all women majors could recall positive
occasions when at least one professor or a teaching assistant "really
helped a lot" or when after studying hard for an exam they did well,
their overwhelming recollections and anecdotes of lectures, recita-
tions, and, in some cases, labs gave a distinct negative cast to their
chemistry and mathematics experience.
Women chemistry and mathematics attriters held suspicions with
regard to these external conditions in their departments' structures.
McDade 99

Essentially, they questioned the reasons behind the conditions they
perceived. While they did not believe that chemistry or math instruc-
tion "had to be this way," few knew what to say or how to verbalize
their suspicion or frustration to their teachers. Rarely did women stu-
dents ever give voice to these feelings with other students or with their
professors. When they did, women reported that they felt victimized
by their own attempt to address the departmental features they per-
ceived as working to their disadvantage. One woman student's ex-
perience illustrated the difficulty of giving voice to frustrations in a
particularly poignant way. Stacy, a mathematics major, recounted,
My calcteachercouldn'tteachat all. He spent over forty-fiveminutes on
one problem.Afterthathe lost everybody.He cameup with problemsthat
hadno solution.Everyonejuststoppedlisteningto him. On one examone
person out of twenty passed.... I don't know how I got elected but we
metanddiscussedtheproblem,andtheyaskedmetosaysomething.Isaid,
"Well,if I do this I need you to backme up." We were in class, and I said
thatI thoughtthe examwas set up to trickus. He got very defensive. He
said, "Well,what do you want?"I said, "Iwant to get the material."He
said, "Well,let's go over it." I explainedthat that wasn't working, over
three-quartersof the class failedthe test, and we needed a new way to ap-
proachthe material.I rememberhe said to me, "Whatdo you want to
learn?"IsaidthatIwould tryharderbutIwished he would speakmorethat
I could understand.... I rememberthe other students were very quiet,
and I was getting very upset emotionally.At the end of the class he sat
down and gave us this talkabouthow he realizedthatmathwas an emo-
tionalsubject.He was lookingdirectlyat me, and everyonebegan looking
atmetoo. IfeltIwas beingmadeafooloutof. Hecouldn'tunderstandthat,
andIdecidedto leave the class.... I resentedthe classbecauseI feltthey
hadcontributedto makingme looklikethe only one thatreallyhada prob-
lem.Togetherwith the professorhumiliatingme in frontof thewhole class
with the emotionalstuff, I decidednot to go backin there.I didn'tthinkat
thatpointIwould get anythingout of it, I had too muchresentment.... I
thinkat the point he said thatmathwas an emotionalsubject-I thinkhe
was saying thatbecause I was a woman and emotionaland that maybe I
couldn'thandlemathematics.
Stacy was the only woman student who directly and incontroverti-
bly pointed to gender discrimination as a reason for leaving the major.
Although other women students hinted at gender differences in pro-
fessorial attitudes and practices, they backed away from these connec-
tions when questioned. Rather, they brought the discussion back to
their own feelings of incompetence and emphasized their deep dis-
appointment in their abilities as chemistry and mathematics learners.
Thus, attrition for women from chemistry and mathematics disci-
plines was a deeply felt experience. The process of abandoning chem-
istry and mathematics commitments and professional identities, the
readjustment of self-images as competent students, and the distress
with the external conditions of study was a disorienting experience for
100 Volume19, 1988

undergraduate college women. Framing their attrition in terms of per-
sonal shortcomings, they saw the structural conditions of learning
chemistry and mathematics as pronouncing their inabilities to achieve
in the disciplines. Most women kept their disappointment and frus-
tration to themselves, and Stacy's attempt to give voice to her concerns
left her feeling only more vulnerable and exposed. For the most part,
then, early departures or attritions were the only critical statements
women students made to professors and classmates.
The Male Counterpoint in Chemistry and Mathematics Attrition
Interview data with a core group of men chemistry leavers, n = 8,
and mathematics leavers, n = 5, whose default majors were repre-
sentative of the larger male attrition group,9 provided a contrast to the
women. The qualitative data revealed prominent differences in males'
orientations to their attrition experiences. College men's descriptions
of leaving chemistry and mathematics also may be clustered into three
general domains or categories: the larger opportunities available to de-
velop their interests, better their intellectual and material well-being,
and bring their life work closer to their ethical or pragmatic standards;
incorporation of a broadened experience and heightened expectations
about their potential after college that warranted their departures from
chemistry or mathematics; and assessment of the time and energy re-
quired for their success in their original departments with a reevalua-
tion and rejection of their department's standards.
Undergraduate chemistry and mathematics men were adjusting
their notions of ideal careers and professional commitments, similar to
the women. However, they rarely framed explanations in terms of
abandoning their original goals. Instead, men students explained their
departures from chemistry and mathematics as pragmatic moves to-
ward fields that offered a number of rewards, ranging from intellec-
tual, material, and moral well-being to a vague idea that "more" op-
portunities would be available to them in another field. Several men
explained their decisions in terms of a change in which "one door
closed as others opened." Though men chemistry undergraduates, for
instance, maintained goals for helping humankind and discovering a
cure for cancer as did women, they did not see the movement away
from chemistry as an occasion to question their concepts of work in a
profession and a career or to abandon an ideal image of themselves as
science "professionals." For chemistry men, there was a world of al-
ternative possibilities available to them as they chose not to maintain
their original majors. Similarly, undergraduate men in mathematics
saw their moves as more suited to who they were and where they
could best use their talents. Their departures from mathematics, then,
did not lead them to question their talents as "math wiz kids."
The attrition from chemistry or mathematics for a college man did
not appear to involve internal questioning of his ability as a compe-
McDade 101

tent, academically capable student.'0 Thus, for departing male and fe-
male chemistry and mathematics majors there appears to be a sharp
contrast in the meaning attached to grades as symbols of one's com-
petence. Women who achieved within two-tenths of a point of men's
cumulative averages tended to internalize what they experienced as
deficient performances, while men did not register their performances
as an indication of deficiency. In the second cluster of responses, men
interpreted their decision to leave chemistry and mathematics as a pro-
cess of self-development and assessment of their own potential.
Where female chemistry and mathematics attriters readily identified
their noncompetitive performance as a crucial factor in self-selecting
out of their original majors, men rarely understood their choices as
influenced by less than desirable performances. Rather, they main-
tained that with additional experiences in the world beyond college,
their understandings of "success" had changed and broadened to in-
clude larger salary potentials and professional prestige in careers they
had not considered prior to declaring their majors.
Although it might be argued that women's and men's orientations
are merely a reconstruction of the semantics of attrition-or failure-
they were, at the least, speech registers that suggest a distinctively
gendered view of attrition in these disciplines. In the last cluster this
contrast is vividly pronounced as men's assessment of their depart-
ments' conditions of study did not register as a salient marker for their
early departures. Men did not underscore the less than desirable fac-
tors of college chemistry and mathematics study as contributing to
their attrition decisions. Although male attriters mentioned the orga-
nization of courses, the dynamics of professorial pedagogy, the stu-
dent-professor relationships, and the atmosphere of competition
among students as undesirable features of study in their original ma-
jors, they did not cite them as related in any way to their attrition. Sim-
ilarly, male attriters did not appear to label these conditions as partic-
ularly pertinent in their undergraduate careers. For men, these con-
ditions were as predictable and as intransigent as "having to register
for the draft or paying income tax." Thus, although male students pro-
vided anecdotes regarding "intimidating" professorial pedagogy and
"cut-throat" student competition, the structure of the chemistry and
mathematics environments did not appear to carryas strong a valence
in men's decisions to move to alternative majors as it did for women.
Rather, men evaluated their departments not on the structural fea-
tures characteristic of learning but on their willingness to invest the
time and energy "to do what had to be done" to meet the department's
and their own standards. One male mathematics attriter, Steven, cap-
tured the pragmatic view of men attriters.
. . . theprofessorswere straightforward.Theyweredifficultand theywere
toughto understandsincemanyof themwere foreigners.Theydid a good
jobatwhattheydidthough.It'sjustthatyou'vegottobeopen. ... They're
102 Volume19, 1988

very capable,but at times they'rebeyond what they'reteaching,and they
justrunthroughthings, and they don'trealizewhat level they'respeaking
to us at. So we have difficultybringingthemback.It'snot easy, you have
to stop themand say, "HUH?"Youhave to makethemgo over something
againand get them to talkin plainEnglish.I had a professorforcalcthree
thatwas off the wall. He didn'tgo over any problemsat all. He walkedin
the classand put theoryon the boardand thatwas it. He didn't give any
examplesand you had to go learnthe applicationyourself.Thatwas diffi-
cult.Iwas lost. So I struggled.
Steven, unlike Stacy, remained in the mathematics department two
additional semesters and "struggled" until he located a major in eco-
nomics that was more to his liking. Steven maintained that his newly
found desire to work at the commodities exchange on Wall Street re-
quired less mathematics and more economics. He believed his talents
and interests were better served by a departure from the mathematics
department in which the structure of mathematics learning was diffi-
cult but inconsequential in his analysis of the changes he had under-
taken in his studies.
Positivist Knowledge, Gendered Voices, and Powerlessness
The qualitative data in this research study provide a depth to the
student attrition experience unavailable from the quantitative profiles.
The qualitative data reveal gender differences in students' orientations
toward attrition or "failure," and the clusters of meaning derived from
students' interviews refine the picture of gender-specific interpreta-
tions of career, self, and the structure of scientific learning in two uni-
versity departments. Students' interpretive clusters of the meaning of
attrition reveal orientations to the college experience and to the world
that elude quantitative studies of retention and attrition. As the qual-
itative data demonstrate, there are considerable contrasts in the ways
women and men view attrition.
The locus of this gender contrast is the antithetical images of per-
sonal power that women and men students imposed upon and de-
rived from the attrition experience. The female voices of attrition pre-
sented an image of powerlessness over performance and over the pe-
dagogy of chemistry and mathematics study. The male voices of attri-
tion offered an image of empowerment over performance by directing
energies toward a better choice for their talents. These results are com-
plementary to DeBoer's findings (1984b) that students' intentions to
continue in science and mathematics are based upon their perceptions
of and attribution to "success" and "failure." Unlike DeBoer's find-
ings, however, these data point to a gender differential in the attri-
bution of success or failure to attrition. Women chemistry and math-
ematics attriters consistently talked about feeling incompetent as a re-
sidual domain in their perceptions of the attrition experience. Women
students believed that departmental factors contributed to their "fail-
McDade 103

ure," but they believed themselves to have been powerless to effect
any change in the structure that might have improved their chances
for success. Men, in contrast, did not attribute "failure" to attrition
and consistently provided pragmatic explanations for their decisions
and preferences. Men did not see the lack of "success" in one field as
a striking statement of their overall competence as students. Thus,
men perceived and/or experienced the departments in markedly neu-
tral and objective terms. They neither registered their attrition to be
indications of "failure," nor did they categorize the undesirable attri-
butes of the chemistry and mathematics departments as exceedingly
negative or as contributory to their attrition decisions.
From the elaborate data women provided on the conditions of
chemistry and mathematics teaching and learning, it was clear that
women attended to cues of inclusion and exclusion from interpersonal
and institutional sources. Though women college students were once
convinced in high school that these fields of study were no longer gen-
der specific, they began to react as outsiders following a few semesters
of study. Men who were nonresponsive to such cues because they
either did not exist for them or they did not attend to such stimuli were
legitimate insiders until they chose to move to another field of study.
The outsider-insider gender phenomenon as related to fields of study
underscores the intransigence of what Strauss (1983)and Rosser (1984)
see as the persistence of labeling intellectual domains as either male or
female arenas. Although this gender phenomenon appears to be erod-
ing in high schools, it remains a feature of college women's experi-
ences as indicated by these data. As high school women were encour-
aged to pursue historically nontraditional fields, they found them-
selves taken back when they discerned "chilly climates" in college de-
partments. Once convinced that the outcomes for women as science
and math majors were boundless, they consciously or unconsciously
began to adjust their ambitions as a result of their academic experi-
ences in the larger arena of college.
Thus, the outsider identity made prominent women students' po-
sition in relation to the knowledge they were attempting "to get."
Knowing the "right stuff" in college presented obstacles that women
did not report encountering in high school. And, as college women
perceived their studies to become more rigorous and their abilities to
falter, their confident and competent self-images of being able to mas-
ter the "right stuff" wavered. When faltering in chemistry and math-
ematics studies women, as outsiders, began to question not what was
"right for them" but whether they were "right" as competent know-
ers. Men, as insiders, maintained few residual feelings of incompet-
ence as a result of their attrition experiences. Men did not see them-
selves as interlopers but as pragmatic participants in the acquisition of
knowledge that had a utilitarian function in helping them to acquire
the "right job" and the "right career." Consequently, college men be-
104 Volume19, 1988

came quite proficient at "hedging their bets for the future," as one
male student labeled his strategy, and men appeared to be more ca-
pable than women in disengaging images of self from their academic
pursuits.
The internalization of failure on the part of women attriters in dis-
ciplines from which they felt estranged produced a deep sense of oth-
erness in relation to their studies. In contrast, the externalization of
failure on the part of men attriters established a protective distance
between themselves and their studies. Thus, the pivotal contrast in
this domain of self-image and competence turns on women's and
men's incorporation of poor performance as an indication of their com-
petence and capability as learners and knowers. Women more so than
men had difficulties in denying the contradictions between them-
selves as capable knowers and the structure of learning they were re-
quired to master in their majors. Men attriters, who objectively had
similar academic profiles to women attriters, could nevertheless dis-
engage from departments without a deep challenge to their subjectiv-
ities as knowers.
In spite of this gendered contrast in making sense of attrition, wom-
en's and men's orientations shared some similar features. First, they
shared a common orientation to science and mathematics knowledge.
Both women and men students recognized their undergraduate
courses as things or objects that required mastery and acquisition.
They concentrated on having the "right stuff" for mastery and the req-
uisite talents for acquiring the material that would lead them from de-
pendent lives as students to the independent "real world" of money,
jobs, and adulthood. Thus, both female and male student interview
groups colluded in building and maintaining a consumption of science
and mathematics knowledge as the acquisition of a thing, a product
that you could acquire with a college degree. Regardless of where
women or men positioned themselves in relation to this mastery of
knowledge, they shared a positivist view of it that denied the intrinsic
subtleties of learning and knowing. Consequently, both women and
men maintained an uncritical acceptance of the legitimacy of knowing
the "right stuff." Women and men could not recount moments in their
preattrition studies when they questioned the permanent and abso-
lute framing of science and mathematics as "factual" disciplines with
right and wrong answers. Rather, they believed that there were prin-
ciples, rules, and codes that required demonstrable mastery on tests,
and these requirements necessitated a kind of labor that was different
from learning the humanities where there were "no right and wrong
answers." Although they complained about memorization that they
believed they needed to employ to do well and "give the prof what he
wants," neither women nor men students critically examined how this
process of teaching and learning required only one narrow view of sci-
entific literacy and competency. They had not discovered, for in-
stance, that science or mathematics was not absolute.11
McDade 105

Second, then, for both women and men attriters, literacy in chem-
istry and mathematics was inevitably functional and utilitarian in stu-
dents' understandings, functional for passing tests and utilitarian for
attaining a degree. Consequently, both women and men students
were disengaged from a critical literacy of scientific knowledge (Mc-
Laren, forthcoming)-a literacy that may incorporate a criticalposition
in relation to knowledge, as well as a utilitarian one.l2 This disengage-
ment characterized 29 students in the entire attrition interview group.
Only one student who was not educated in the United States prior to
high school commented on the complexity of scientific literacy and the
relationship of what is known to an epistemology and politics of
knowing. In commenting about the absence of ethical debate in his
science and mathematics courses, he stated,
Oneof my idols is AlbertEinstein.I likehis essays and opinioncollections
andraisingquestionsabouttheethicsof science.Ialwayswantedtobe part
oftheintellectualcommunity.Igrewup readingHegel, Marx,Sartrewhere
they talkabout the great debates, like between Hegel and Schiller.So I
wantedto be partof thatand wanted to be partof the greatcommunity.I
do notbelievethattechnologyis neutral,itis anideology. Scienceis anide-
ology and thatis the problem.Technologyis so successfulin Americabe-
causeof the traditionof pragmatismin Americanculture.Thefactthatcap-
italis producedand scienceis only a more recentway in which capitalis
embodiedis clearto me now. Ifound thisout froman internshipand some
researchI did for a professor. I becameaware of all the questionablere-
search.... Inparticular,researchthatalthoughalotof the secondaryuses
areimportantforpeople, its aims areforwarfare .... they saw it as a job
andas a meansforthe countryto controlthe meansof productionand the
workerson the job.
For the remaining 29 students, however, there was little engagement
of a critical consciousness regarding what they were expected to
know. Concerned predominantly with individual survival and suc-
cess, student attriters did not see their dilemma as part of a larger,
more complex system that framed scientific knowledge. Nor did they
indict their professors for their lack of engaging in questions of the
value and purpose of scientific literacy. And certainly, no one had
asked students to consider what Ruth Bleier has labeled the problems
of "patriarchalscience" (1984:193). According to Bleier,
scienceis not the neutral,dispassionate,value-freepursuitof Truth;. . .
scientistsarenot objective,disinterestedorculturallydisengagedfromthe
questions they ask of natureor the methods they use to frametheir an-
swers.Itis furthermore,impossibleforscienceorscientiststobe otherwise,
since scienceis a socialactivityand a culturalproductcreatedby persons
who live in the world of scienceas well as in the societiesthatbredthem.
[1984:193]
Thus, for both women and men at State University, a critical con-
sciousness of the attrition experience and its connections to the larger
106 Volume19, 1988

meaning of scientific inquiry eluded the attrition cohort. Students,
completely engaged in the production of a functional scientific literacy
and knowing the "right stuff," had little opportunity to gain a per-
spective on the many ways of knowing a scientific discipline. Cer-
tainly, there was no structure to encourage what BarbaraMcClintock
has called "a feeling of knowing," a knowing that she could not easily
fit into the "scientific method.. .that made it possible for me to be cre-
ative in an unknown way" (Keller 1983:203). This is a knowing that
college women and men who left the chemistry and mathematics de-
partments at State University did not cultivate during their under-
graduate study. As they struggled to order and make sense of their
attrition experiences, women and men did not access their experiences
through a critical vision necessary to frame a larger perspective on
their collective experience of attrition or on the many ways of coming
to learn and know a discipline.
Notes
Acknowledgments.The researchreportedin this articlewas funded by a grant
fromDigitalCorporation.Iwould liketo thankDr.BarbaraSchroederandDr.
LindaTappenfortheirassistancewith database files and computerizationof
statisticaltests. In addition, Dr. JoanBurstynand Dr. SherryRosencontrib-
utedto the conceptualizationof this research.
1. "StateUniversity"is an east coast institution.Its name has been changed
to assureconfidentialityof studentand teacheridentitiesin thisarticle.
2. Thefemaleinterviewsampleconsistedof seventeen women, nine of whom
were chemistrymajorsand eight of whom were mathematicsmajors.The
maleinterviewsampleconsistedof thirteenmen, eight of whom were chem-
istrymajorsand five of whom were mathematicsmajors.Ofthe femaleinter-
view sample, threewomen were Asian and the remainingfifteenwere Cau-
casian.Of the maleinterviewsample, eleven were Caucasian,one was black
American,and one was LatinAmerican.Studentsdescribedtheirfamiliesof
origin as "middle class" based upon the characteristicsof annual income,
home ownership,and father'soccupationalstatus. Studentsdescribedthem-
selves as "middleclass,"as well.
3. Thecomparisonof women's and men'sretentionand attritionatStateUni-
versityis bestconveyed in tables1and 2.
4. Thewomen's defaultpatternindicatesthatafterdepartingfromtheirorig-
inalmajor,the femalechemistryattriterselected, first,a majorin other, less-
mathematicallydependent sciences;second, a majorthatsubsumeda science
interestundera socialscienceandbusiness application;and, third,a majorin
theappliedsciencesof engineering.Bylookingatdefaultmajors,then, itwas
determinedthat58%of the women chemistryleaversmaintainedacontinued
interestin the sciences, while otherattriterswere dispersedamong humani-
tiesandprofessionalfieldsorleftcollegealtogether.
McDade 107

Anthropology& EducationQuarterly Volume 19, 1988
Table 1.
Retention and Attrition of the Female Freshman Cohorts, State University,
1981-85 and 1982-86
Cohort
1981-85
All
1982-86
TotalEnrollees
ChemistryMajors
Retained
Attrited
MathMajors
Retained
Attrited
TotalC &M Majors
Retained
Attrited
N % N % N %
2,446 100.0 2,268 100.0 4,714 100.0
56 2.2 55 2.4 111 2.3
20 .8 28 1.2 48 1.0
36 1.4 27 1.2 63 1.3
46 1.8 44 1.9 90 1.9
18 .7 23 1.0 41 .9
28 1.1 21 .9 49 1.0
102 4.1 99 4.3 201 4.2
38 1.5 51 2.2 89 1.9
64 2.6 48 2.1 112 2.4
Table 2.
Retention and Attrition of the Male Freshman Cohorts, State University,
1981-85 and 1982-86
Cohort
1981-85
All
1982-86
TotalEnrollees
ChemistryMajors
Retained
Attrited
MathMajors
Retained
Attrited
TotalC &M Majors
Retained
Attrited
N % N % N %
1,874 100.0 1,720 100.0 3,594 100.0
48 2.6 52 3.0 100 2.8
22 1.2 28 1.6 50 1.4
26 1.4 24 1.4 50 1.4
43 2.3 35 2.0 78 2.2
22 1.2 18 1.0 40 1.1
21 1.1 17 1.0 38 1.1
91 4.9a 87 5.1 178 5.0
44 2.3 46 2.7 90 2.5
47 2.5 41 2.4 88 2.5
aCellpercentagesareroundedto the thousands'placeand maynot correspondto cat-
egorysubtotal.
Women mathematics leavers shared some similar patterns with the chem-
istry cohort. The largest group of women mathematics attriters, 31% (n = 15),
108

Knowingthe "RightStuff"
were total college leavers as compared to the 16%of chemistry attriters who
left college. Unlike the chemistry women, the default majors of women math-
ematics attriters remaining in college did not represent the majority's com-
mitment to mathematics. Whereas a little over one-half of chemistry attriters
continued an interest in science, approximately one-third of women math at-
triters remained connected in some way to mathematics study.
5. The mathematics interview group did not represent the 31%of college drop-
outs but were representative of the attrition group remaining enrolled in un-
dergraduate programs at State University.
6. The cumulative grade point average for female chemistry graduates and at-
triters averaged 2.0926. The chemistry graduate mean registered significantly
higher at 2.5327 while the chemistry attriter cumulative mean was 1.7520. An
ANOVA of the cums found a significant p value equal to .0001.
Forthe combined 1981 and 1982 freshman female chemistry cohorts, all var-
iables: high school rank, SAT math and verbal scores, and the state mathe-
matics basic skills tests were highly correlated with cums at probability values
of .0001. The correlation between cum and the number of high school math
courses delivered a weaker significant positive correlation, with a p value of
.0091. Table 3 provides the Pearson Correlation Coefficients and probability
values for these variables. The correlations indicate a strong relationship be-
tween precollegiate achievement for female chemistry majors and collegiate
performance as represented in cumulative averages. These correlations of pre-
collegiate performance and college cums reveal distinct differences between
the graduating and attriting female chemistry groups.
ANOVAs performed on these same variables for the chemistry graduating
and attriting groups yielded similar results. As seen in Table 4, F ratios for the
variances yield p values between .0001 and .05, indicating that precollegiate
differences existed between the graduating and attriting groups on the varia-
bles labeled as "success predictors" in this research.
The findings suggest that a pattern of precollegiate preparation can contrib-
ute to retention or attrition of women in the chemistry major.
7. The cumulative grade point average for female mathematics graduates and
attriters averaged 2.0639. The mathematics graduate mean of 2.4085 was sig-
nificantly higher than the attriters' at 1.7696. An ANOVA of the variations
produced an F value of 9.19 yielding a significant p value equal to .0036.
Thus, differences in the cumulative averages for the mathematics graduat-
ing and attriting female groups correspond to the chemistry groups' profiles:
the graduating group's cum exceeded that of the attriting group. Unlike the
Table 3.
Correlation of High School Performance and College Cum, Freshmen
Female Chemistry Majors (1981 and 1982)
HS Rank SAT-M SAT-V MBS-1 MBS-2 HS Math
r value .44464 .61583 .44003 .49939 .54021 .25223
p value .00010 .00010 .00010 .00010 .00010 .00010
McDade 109

Anthropology& EducationQuarterly Volume 19, 1988
Table 4.
Differences between Female Chemistry Graduates and Attriters,
1981 and 1982 Cohorts
Cum HS Rank SAT-M SAT-V MBS-1 MBS-2 HS Math
F ratios 16.4600 5.3100 8.8100 8.3500 6.3900 7.7500 9.6900
p>F .0001 .0235 .0037 .0047 .0131 .0064 .0024
Table 5.
Correlation of High School Performance and College Cum, Freshmen
Female Mathematics Majors (1981 and 1982)
r value .27109 .37045 .17021 .20114 .27803 .18582
p value .01950 .00040 .11080 .06330 .00950 .09060
Table 6.
Differences between Female Mathematics Graduates and Attriters,
F ratios 9.1900 1.1300 2.6800 .0100 9.1830 1.5400 .4700
p>F .0032 .2922 .1049 .9251 .0100 .2183 .4931
chemistry group, however, the correlation of cumulative averages could not
be related to high school achievement across all high school performance var-
iables selected for analysis in this study. As seen in Table 5, the SAT-M score
is the most closely correlated variable to college cum, at a p value of .0004. The
second level of the state's mathematics basic skills test (p = .0095) and high
school rank (p = .0195) also are significantly correlated with cum. However,
the remaining variables indicate weaker coefficients. These statistics produce
a precollegiate performance profile that is less uniform in its relationship to
college cum than that of the chemistry group.
The ANOVAs performed for the mathematics groups also point to this in-
consistency. In fact, only the F ratios for cum and the first state math exam
yielded significant variances between the mathematics graduating and attrit-
ing groups. As Table 6 indicates, there are less significant differences among
mathematics graduates and attriters in terms of success predictors than there
are for chemistry graduates and attriters.
These statistical tests, then, show fewer contrasts between the graduating
and attriting female mathematics groups than for chemistry. Although cums
are once again important markers for student retention and attrition, the im-
110

pact of precollegiate performance on college cum is less statistically verifiable
as success indicators for the math than for the chemistry cohort.
8. Such variations as relative to college cums require continued research. Since
a homogeneous pattern cannot be statistically verified for this select group,
the dependence upon quantitative indicators of college retention and attrition
must be interpreted to tell only a partial story.
9. The male profile of default majors from chemistry is similar to those of fe-
males' in that they relocated to the same areas (e.g., social sciences, low-math-
ematics sciences, and engineering). However, the rankings of preference
stand in contrast to that of women. Men explained the first choice of a major
in social sciences, predominantly economics and political science, as a choice
toward business and a higher income than that which they believed would be
possible for them in chemistry. Women, however, did not rank income as a
major reason for their departure from chemistry, in fact they preferred to re-
main in science but to choose areas they believed to be more applied and less
mathematically dependent.
When men left mathematics they overwhelmingly headed for default ma-
jors in the social sciences. The primary default majors were identical for men
and women in mathematics, as both groups overwhelmingly moved toward
the social sciences and mathematical sciences. Subsequently, men headed to-
ward the professional areas of engineering and business while women se-
lected professional areas of health, teaching, social work, journalism, and
home economics. This last gender specific dispersion points to some residual
traditionalism in alternative career patterns for men and women after leaving
a mathematics major.
10. I phrase this analysis deliberately in terms of what "appears" to be assert-
able. Because of a methodological concern that pertains to cross-gender re-
search (i.e., my status as a female might have inhibited the responses of males
with regard to what may have been labeled by them as an admission of weak-
ness), I would like to underscore the possibility that male more than female
interviewees in this project may have more rigorously denied to me, if not to
themselves, feelings of disappointment.
This is particularly pertinent when the academic profiles of the male attriters
are taken into account in the analysis. First, the cumulative grade point aver-
ages for male chemistry graduates and attriters averaged 2.23045. The chem-
istry graduate mean registered higher at 2.5506, while the chemistry attriter
cumulative mean was 1.9103. An ANOVA of cums found a significant p value
equal to .0016. (The p value for females was at .0001.)
Similar to the female chemistry cohort, the male group's precollegiate per-
formance yielded strongly significant correlations between the variables of
high school rank, math SAT scores, the advanced basic skills test, and high
school math grades and college cumulative averages, as shown in Table 7. Ad-
ditionally, the verbal SAT score and the first level mathematics basic skills test
registered significant correlations at a p value of .05. Thus, in terms of precol-
legiate preparation, the male and female chemistry cohorts reveal similar char-
acteristics in terms of preparation.
However, as seen in Table 8, the ANOVAs performed on the same variables
for the male chemistry graduating and attriting cohorts only yield a significant
difference in the variance for cums and a very close register of significance for
McDade 111

Anthropology& EducationQuarterly
Table 7.
Correlation of High School Performance and College Cum, Freshmen Male
Chemistry Majors (1981 and 1982)
r value .46817 .32524 .21276 .23629 .45569 .33400
p value .00010 .00100 .03360 .02050 .00010 .00070
Table 8.
Differences between Male Chemistry Graduates and Attriters,
F ratios 10.5600 1.1000 1.5400 1.7600 .4900 2.3000 3.7000
p>F .0016 .2969 .2169 .1876 .4836 .1326 .0573
Table 9.
Correlation of High School Performance and College Cum, Freshmen Male
Mathematics Majors (1981 and 1982)
r value .40007 .22339 .11453 .04620 .06534 -0.12914
p value .00100 .04930 .31810 .69390 .57760 .26620
high school mathematics grades. The male chemistry cohort, then, is more
uniform than the female cohort in terms of high school and collegiate perfor-
mance, raising questions for future study with regard to nongender specific
predictors of high school performance.
A similar academic profile is afforded for male mathematics majors. The cu-
mulative grade point average for male mathematics graduates and attriters av-
eraged 2.3179. The mathematics graduate mean of 2.6657 was significantly
higher than the attriters' at 1.9518. An ANOVA of the cums produced an F
value of 9.58, yielding a significant p value equal to .0028.
As seen in Table 9, correlations are not significant for precollegiate perfor-
mance of male mathematics majors. High school rank is the only significant
positive relationship for male majors, while for females math SAT scores and
the advanced level of mathematics basic skills test yielded significant correla-
tions.
Additionally, the ANOVAs performed on the male mathematics graduating
and attritergroups (Table 10) point to F ratios for cum and high school rank at
the probability value of .05 significance. Similar to the female cohort in math-
ematics, then, it is difficult to separate graduating and attriting groups on var-
112 Volume 19, 1988

Table 10.
Differences between Male Mathematics Graduates and Attriters,
F ratios 9.5800 4.3500 2.0300 .3800 .4800 .370 0.0000
p > F .0028 .0410 .1587 .5385 .4901 .576 .9880
iations in high school performance as predictors for college success in math-
ematics.
11. Belenky and her coauthors have called such an orientation to knowing a
concentration on "received" knowledge, the "perspective from which women
[and men] conceive of themselves as capable of receiving, even reproducing
knowledge from all-knowing external authorities but not capable of creating
it on their own" (1986:15).
12. Though "critical literacy" most often has been used as a concept relevant
to the study of knowledge in the humanities and to a lesser extent in the social
sciences, it is my contention that a "critical literacy" also may be asked of sci-
entific knowers. Such a critical scientific literacy would question the "unitary
and fixed essence" of understanding natural phenomena, the logico-empirical
positivism that pervades science and math teaching and learning, and the ab-
sences and silences regarding the uses to which such knowledge is put.
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Bleier, Ruth
1984 Gender and Science. New York: Pergamon Press. Committee on the
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DeBoer, George
1984a Factors Affecting the Science Participation and Performance of
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1986 Social Forces Shape Math Attitudes and Performance. Signs
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1983 A Feeling for the Organism. New York:W. H. Freeman.
McDade 113

Anthropology& EducationQuarterly
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114 Volume 19, 1988

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