Institutions of higher education are a key pathway for supplying the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. Military service members have been identified as STEM-ready and a potential pool for STEM as they transition into civilian careers. Furthermore, women are the fastest growing subpopulation of veterans and may decrease the gender gap within STEM. Higher education researchers are interested in understanding the characteristics and experiences of students who select STEM majors and then persist to graduation. Literature related to women veterans is limited and a qualitative case study approach was utilized to achieve an in-depth understanding of their college experiences. This study examined four women who were successfully navigating STEM majors at one institution and revealed their varying motivations for enrollment and persistence. Three themes generated from this study included: self-awareness, success is personal, and military experience matters. Subsidiary themes included starting over; strategy; salience of age; stage of life; self-advocacy; standards; personal attributes; past experiences; personal responsibility for learning; procuring resources; career path (STEM) reinforced or introduced; creditable and credible; and cultivated soft skills. Veteran critical theory, multiple dimensions of identity and intersectionality were useful frameworks to reference as participants expressed the influence of their identities on their life and military experiences. The findings illuminate ways institutions of higher education can facilitate women veterans' success as students, supplying much needed diversity to the STEM pipeline.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-07T15:08:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 906133 bytes, checksum: 30288298e79161955d74803bc4a260cb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-09-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation aims at analyzing the social representations on the teaching practice among teachers from the basic education first stages in a city of Paraíba. One intends to identify the representational contents of groups of teachers from both urban and rural areas in order to understand how these representations express themselves in different pedagogical moments. This study utilizes the theoretical-methodological approach of social representations based on the contributions by Serge Moscovici and by Denise Jodelet (2001). From its classical definition, one understands that the social representations constitute a process of creation, diffusion and change of knowledge socially constructed and shared in social groups daily discourse in their interactions, which permit the understanding and transformation of the reality to the construction of another common one for a social group. This research work is a qualitative one as it consists of an ethnographic case study based on the approach discussed by Marli André. The study utilizes the theoretical presuppositions adopted by Freire (1996) among other authors concerning the multidimensional characteristic attributed to the teaching practice. This study also highlights the teaching practice conception as a complex and heterogeneous activity full of formal concepts, norms, contradictions, tensions, dilemmas and diversities. The research accomplishment occurs in different moments: application of questionnaire, analysis of some school documents, observation, and focal group technique. The results have shown that teachers from both rural and urban areas share the same social representations although there are representational elements which are more evident in a group than another. As a conclusion, this research study has shown that the teaching practice is a highly complex activity by involving multiple dimensions and that are interconnected, complementing each other in the teaching action, such as: professional/institutional, cognitive, ethical, affectionate, political, philosophical and aesthetical. / Esta dissertação objetiva analisar as representações sociais sobre a prática docente entre professores vinculados às etapas iniciais da educação básica de um município paraibano. Pretende-se identificar os conteúdos representacionais de grupos de professores das áreas urbana e rural no intuito de compreender como estas representações se expressam nos diferentes momentos pedagógicos. O presente estudo compreende a abordagem teóricometodológica das representações sociais fundamentada em Serge Moscovici e está alicerçado também nas contribuições de Denise Jodelet (2001). A partir da sua clássica definição, compreende-se que as representações sociais são um processo de criação, difusão e mudança do conhecimento socialmente elaborado e partilhado no discurso cotidiano dos grupos sociais e em suas interações, capaz de permitir a compreensão e transformação da realidade para a construção de uma realidade comum a um conjunto social. A presente pesquisa possui caráter qualitativo enquanto estudo de caso do tipo etnográfico e tem por base as formulações da abordagem etnográfica discutida por Marli André. O estudo lança mão do pressuposto teórico adotado por Freire (1996) e outros autores concernente ao caráter multidimensional atribuído à prática docente. Parte-se nesse estudo também da concepção de prática docente enquanto atividade complexa e heterogênea cercada de formalismos, normas, contradições, tensões, dilemas e diversificações. O encaminhamento da pesquisa deu-se em momentos distintos: aplicação de questionário, análise de alguns documentos das escolas, observação e técnica de grupo focal. Os resultados revelaram que os professores da área rural e do meio urbano partilham as mesmas representações sociais, embora existam elementos representacionais mais fortemente evidenciados em um grupo que no outro. Na pesquisa, evidenciou-se que a prática docente é uma atividade altamente complexa por envolver múltiplas dimensões e que se interligam, complementando-se entre si na ação docente, tais como: profissional/institucional, cognitiva, ética, afetiva, política, filosófica e estética.

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