'You see yourself be there without any education' - How imagined futures intertwine with social class for female upper secondary science and mathematics students

Approaching STEM participation as a social justice issue has heightened the focus on understanding post-compulsory participation, aspirations and choices. To address this, the present qualitative study focuses on 32 socially diverse women with science and mathematics profiles in their final year of upper secondary school. Through individual semi-structured narrative interviews, the study explores the women's imagined futures and how these imaginings and identity negotiations are interwoven with experiences in science and mathematics. The findings show that gender and social class operate subtly, yet powerfully, within educational settings. Few working-class women imagined a future in STEM, and access to resources - or the lack thereof - was deeply entangled with both their sense of belonging in school and the kinds of futures they perceived as possible. In contrast, middle-class women who envisioned futures in STEM often expressed determination and perseverance, supported by a strong sense of confidence and alignment with educational expectations. Moreover, the study highlights that future imaginings in the final year of upper secondary school remain open to negotiation and change for many of the young women. This fluidity underscores the urgency of addressing the structural and cultural mechanisms that systematically exclude working-class young women from further education.