Ethnic, Familial, and Cultural Barriers Impacting non-White Representation in Environmental Programs

Non-White minorities represent nearly half of the US population and strongly support environmental protection but are severely underrepresented in environmental careers and natural resource-related degree programs. What factors contribute to this disparity in environment career choice? Previous research has indicated that students career decisions are influenced by family and culture as they related to self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations towards different occupation choices. In this paper, I explored the importance of familial and cultural factors in career choice decisions to understand the motivations of non-White minority students to enter and remain in college degree programs within environmental disciplines. I surveyed 122 students enrolled in both environmental and non-environmental degree programs at Arizona State University. I measured family and cultural influence using the “Family Influence Scale” and “Orthogonal Cultural Identification Scale” respectively. I hypothesized that non-White students in environmental degree programs are influenced less by their families and are more acculturated to the dominant Anglo culture compared to non-White students in non-environmental degree programs. I found no significant relationship between ethnicity, family influence, or acculturation on the degree choices of students. Interestingly, family influence on students’ career decisions was most influenced by home language, household income, and acculturation to the dominant culture. Students more acculturated to Anglo culture reported higher familial influence. Higher income and non-English speaking households also reported higher levels of family influence. Acculturation and language in particular are interesting factors related to family influence and warrant further analysis especially in relation to non-White student participation in environmental careers.