School teachers as agents of STEM career guidance: practices and barriers to the formation of students' scientific capital

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Authors: Alena Igorevna Cherevkova, Galina Igorevna Chikarova

Annotation: This article analyzes the role of teachers as key agents of career guidance in STEM professions. Drawing on L. Archer's concept of scientific capital, which extends Pierre Bourdieu's theory of capitals to the scientific and technical sphere, the article examines the practices used by teachers for STEM career guidance, as well as the barriers that limit the effectiveness of this work. The empirical base is data from a questionnaire survey of teachers (N = 1,849), conducted in March-April 2025 in three cities (Moscow, Samara, Rostov-on-Don). A contradiction was revealed between teachers' high subjective assessment of their role in career guidance (47.9% consider it key) and low actual activity (only 10.8% initiate it independently). The main obstacle is a lack of resources and time (65.3% of teachers report an overloaded curriculum and a lack of time in the classroom), which makes it impossible to personalize the transfer of scientific capital. Additional obstacles include teachers' lack of personalized scientific capital, weak horizontal connections between schools and businesses and research organizations, and a gap between the formats offered by schools and the expectations of parents and students. This article explores the emergence of the phenomenon of institutionalized but not personalized scientific capital, overcoming which requires not strengthening formal measures but rather restoring teacher agency, reducing teaching loads, and integrating teachers into relevant scientific and industry communities.

Keywords: Sociology of education, Career guidance, Schools, Teachers, Scientific capital, STEM professions, Professional self-determination