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Access to scientific careers.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

The National Science Foundation funded the Bridges Project in 2000 to develop a model to increase accessibility to scientific careers for students with disabilities. One aspect included supporting students with disabilities who pursue science and math related careers during their first year of college. A second aspect was a three-year collaboration between high school and community college teachers in science and mathematics with the project director to identify several organizational structures that are barriers to pursuing scientific careers for students. The barriers identified included students' limited pre-college academic opportunities and rigor, major institutional differences including expectations of independent learning, self-advocacy, time and pace of instruction and disabilities laws governing each level.

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The National Science Foundation funded the Bridges Project in 2000 to develop a model to increase accessibility to careers in science technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for students with disabilities. One aspect of the project included supporting students with disabilities who were pursuing scientific careers during their first year of college and a second aspect was collaboration between high school and community college teachers in science and mathematics. During the three-year investigation the teachers and project director, who is a specialist in transitioning youth with disabilities, identified several organizational structures that are barriers to pursuing scientific careers for students with disabilities.

One organizational barrier is the requirement for students to have a minimum of two math and two science courses at the high school level. Forty percent of the fifty states have this minimum requirement and eight states leave such graduation requirements to local control (Education Commission of the States, 1998). While minimum requirements may seem laudable by enabling more students to achieve a high school diploma; it is not a sufficient foundation to pursue scientific and mathematical careers. Students with disabilities are often encouraged to take only the minimum of science and/or math courses and earn these credits outside of the challenges of the regular classroom. Science/math credits earned in a special education class usually are a curricula taught by special education teachers with limited subject matter knowledge in math and science (Gurganus, Janas & Schmitt, 1995). Further, in special education classrooms students often experience a diluted curriculum and lower teacher expectations (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Hamlet, 1989; Pugach & Warger, 1996, Cunningham, 1998). An additional barrier is the prevailing myth held by teachers and parents that students with disabilities are not capable of learning higher level mathematics or science (Cunningham, 1998 & Burgstahler, 1994). Even when students with disabilities are included in science classrooms, teachers may be inappropriately concerned with laboratory safety issues, thus limiting classroom activities (Fetters, 2002). These decisions have the same outcome: students with disabilities do not have access to the same level of...

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