【Empirical Seminar】Malleable Minds: The Effects of STEM-v. Humanities-Focused Curricula
2025/06/24
研討會日期 : 2025-06-24
時間 : 10:45
主講人 : Professor Rajeev Dehejia
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Tzu-Ting Yang
演講者簡介 : Professor Rajeev Dehejia received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1997. He is currently a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at New York University. His research interests are Applied Microeconomics, Econometrics, Development Economics, Labor Economics, and Public Economics.
演講摘要 : We examine the impact of assignment to STEM v. humanities-focused curricula in Romania's high school system. We apply a regression discontinuity design to administrative and survey data to estimate effects on educational pathways, career plans, and non-cognitive outcomes. An overarching theme of our findings is the malleability of students to what they study. Assignment to STEM increases STEM college enrollment by 23 pp and STEM career intentions by 17 pp, with corresponding negative effects on humanities-related enrollment and career plans. Exploring mechanisms, we find that STEM assignment changes students' self-perceived academic abilities and their preferences over academic subjects and job tasks. We find less evidence for stories related to sunk costs, peer and teacher influences, or beliefs about earnings and work conditions. Importantly, STEM assignment involves a risk: it improves wellbeing, high school satisfaction, and career prospects on average, but reduces performance on a high school exit exam, leading to lower college enrollment and retrospective satisfaction among low-achieving students. Similarly, it makes female students report negative experiences with college professors and peers. A final finding is that male students become more conservative. We provide suggestive explanations for our results on wellbeing and political preferences by measuring effects on time use, friendships, and expectations.
