The impact of SES on participation and attainment in science - a review of existing literature

This review examines factors that might influence the participation or uptake and attainment of science subjects, especially the role of family background. We conducted electronic searches of the ERIC and Psychinfo databases looking for science participation or attainment with SES or equivalent (occupation, social class, family background, income). We conducted similar searches using Google Scholar,
and hand searches of generic and science-based education journals. The result is a mixture of peer-reviewed articles, grey literature, presentations, and student theses. To these we added some of our own work and relevant pieces already known to us, yielding a total of over 1,000 pieces. We then excluded anything repeated in form or substance, that on closer inspection was not relevant, and anything that was not
a research report or review of research. We cite 160 different pieces in the full report.