More skilled young people are urgently needed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the UK. This book indicates how policy can be developed to encourage young people to consider STEM careers. It challenges widely held assumptions about how role models help raise aspirations and support progression to higher education, and asks whether role models really do encourage pupils, particularly girls, into STEM careers.
The book examines New Labour’s widening participation policy of encouraging university student ambassadors to work as role models with younger students and school pupils. The study of STEM ambassador schemes at two contrasting universities reveals how they are positioned by the surrounding discourses and activities. It examines the developing relationships between pupils and ambassadors, the learning that takes place, and the matching of ethnic, classed and gendered identities.

Gartland questions the assumption that university students are role models for school pupils simply by virtue of their gender or other identities and their status as students. But it also provides valuable insights into how encounters between pupils and university students can effectively support and encourage pupils in STEM subjects.

STEM Strategies is essential reading for policy makers and for school, FE and HE practitioners involved in outreach and interested in social justice. It is especially relevant to practitioners working with ambassadors in education, to people in industry working on STEM ambassador programmes, and those looking at diversity, access to HE and identity formation. The multidisciplinary approach makes a unique contribution to a developing body of evidence on how best to support the diversification of students in the STEM subject areas.