Research on academic resilience has gained attention for its potential to promote equitable opportunities, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged students who face significant barriers. Yet, research on factors supporting academic resilience in science specifically across different cultural contexts remains limited. This study investigates academic resilience in science among secondary school students in two socio-culturally distinct countries, Sweden and Vietnam. It examines how students' motivation to learn science and perceptions of school science differ between academically resilient and non-resilient students in each country. The analysis utilises data from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science cycle, involving 5,458 students from 202 Swedish schools and 5,826 students from 188 Vietnamese schools. The findings show a lower proportion of academically resilient students in Sweden (36.19%) compared to Vietnam (59.89%). Despite socio-cultural differences, both countries share common factors contributing to resilience in science, including enjoyment of science, science self-efficacy, teacher support, and a sense of belonging. However, several factors distinguishing resilient from non-resilient students vary between these countries, which are pertinent not only to students but also to teachers and their teaching approaches. This study underscores the importance of discipline-specific and contextually relevant approaches for fostering academic resilience in science education, particularly among disadvantaged youth. Adapting interventions to align with cultural and contextual needs can enhance equitable science learning outcomes.

 Uppdraget består alltså i att ge en kunskapsöversikt över intresse för STEM-utbildning, där följande frågeställningar behandlas:

1. Hur kan fler elever få intresse för att studera inom gymnasial utbildning och eftergymnasial utbildning som innehåller STEM?

2. Hur kan utbildningen i gymnasieskolan och komvux väcka och upprätthålla mäns och kvinnors intresse för vidare studier i STEM inom eftergymnasial utbildning.

3. Vilka förklaringsmodeller skulle kunna förklara elevers skillnader i intresse för vidare studier inom STEM?

Vi börjar med att reda ut fråga 3 under rubriken “Förklaringsmodeller för intresse inom STEM”. Fråga 1 och 2 handlar om implikationer för skola, föreningsliv och högre utbildning, och de utreds under rubrikerna “Vad fungerar för att stärka intresset för STEM?” och “Hur kan eftergymnasial utbildning upprätthålla intresset för STEM?”

Research on resilience over the past decades has been seeking to understand how some students manage to overcome the odds associated with exposure to adversities. Within this research field, the concept of resilience has been extensively examined, with “academic resilience” has been widely used in education to describe resilience in relation to learning and cognitive performance. At the same time, science education research has long focused on understanding and counteracting educational inequalities affecting minoritised students and has generated insights into how some students persists and succeed despite structural and social challenges. However, these issues have rarely been explicitly examined through the lens of academic resilience. This review paper therefore examines how academic resilience has been conceptualised and mobilised within science education research, and considers what a resilience framework contributes to understanding how students navigate structural barriers in learning science. Through a review of thirteen science education journals, the analysis identifies four overarching themes in the limited but emerging use of academic resilience in the field, as well as a range of resources that support students’ engagement and educational trajectories within context shaped by structural constraints. These resources are discussed in relation to how academic resilience has been operationalised within science education research, advancing a conceptualisation of academic resilience that could be potentially brings greater analytical coherence to existing research on the phenomena of “succeeding against the odds” in science education.

In this paper, we seek to contribute to understandings about how physics allows reflection on what it means to be human. Drawing on life-history interviews with three university physics students, we explore the affective and existential aspects of engagement in physics, with attention to experiences from informal and formal science spaces. With Hartmut Rosa’s conceptualization of resonance, we show how (intertwined and parallel) relations to physics–as a superstructure, science materials, and people via science–can provide meaningful connections to the world and oneself. The students, all of whom had undertaken adult education, had enrolled in university physics for reasons of awe, joy, and, also, serenity in hardship. Though reiterating common understandings of physics as an ‘objective’ and ‘challenging’ subject, the interviewees described their engagement in physics as salutogenic. Physics provided existential meaning and well-being; e.g. its epistemic character of boundaries and beauty offered stability in precarious life situations. Our study shows how science can be important for (i) reshaping one’s worldview and self-understanding, (ii) fostering meaningful relationships, and (iii) enhancing well-being. We conclude that to cultivate engagement in science, education should prioritize creating meaningful, respectful learning spaces that support students in forming a diverse range of resonant science-related relationships.