Who goes to inclusive STEM high schools?

For schools included in our study, twelfth graders attending the inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) in the iSTEM North Carolina school sample were more likely than those in comparison schools to be African American (50% versus 25%). This was the only statistically significant difference between students from the two North Carolina school samples.

In Texas, the dominant ethnic group consisted of Hispanics who comprised about two-thirds of the grade 12 enrollment at both ISHSs and comprehensive high schools. Several other differences were statistically significant. ISHS students were slightly less likely to be female (47% versus 52%) and less likely to have a parent working in a STEM-related field. ISHS students were more likely to come from a home where a language other than English was spoken (44% versus 30%) but were somewhat more likely to have at least one parent with a college degree (29% versus 23%). All of these differences were controlled for in analyses testing the impact of attending an inclusive STEM-focused high school.