STEM Education for All: Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together scholarship that investigate the critical transitions that students experience as they move through secondary school into postsecondary education and into a STEM career. We draw on research from both STEM education and higher education to define critical transitions as the changes students make from one phase of the educational process to the next as they progress toward their goal (Chang, Buonora, Stevens, & Kwon, 2016; Yosso & Solórzano, 2006). Etzkowitz and colleagues (2000) describe these moves as points when young people either may be drawn into a STEM pathway or may fall or be pushed out (e.g., introductory-level college courses that seek to ‘weed out’ certain students).

We invite high-quality original research that addresses timely issues relating to the critical transitions students go through in their pathway into STEM studies and careers, with a focus on broadening participation in STEM studies and careers. We are interested in research relating to P-20 STEM in the following areas:

1. Policies that hinder or enhance student pathways into STEM (e.g., financial aid policies; university transfer policies; course requirements);
2. Informal supports for underserved students (e.g., bridge programs, mentoring, summer camps);
3. Instructor development (e.g., pre-service teacher education, professional development);
4. Student motivational beliefs (e.g., student identity, self-efficacy).

We welcome quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods designs and research from across the globe.

Dr. Virginia Snodgrass Rangel
Dr. Jerrod A. Henderson
Dr. Daniel Burleson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.