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This chapter focuses on successful strategies for increasing the number of males who enter and succeed in science at the college level. These strategies reflect lessons we have learned over the years from the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, launched in 1989, for high-achieving African American students in science and engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

Intervention strategies to increase participation and success in STEM areas vary depending on the specific goals of programs and presumably, their funding. Matyas (1991) focused on minority engineering programs and found that successful programs tend to contain the following elements: (a) assistance with admission procedures;, (b) assistance with student matriculation; (c) academic support services; (d) student study center; (e) linkage of students with minority student organizations in engineering; and (f) summer engineering jobs. A recent, systematic review by a panel of experts identified eight design principles that underpin exemplary and promising higher education-based STEM interventions: (a) institutional leadership; (b) targeted recruitment; (c) engaged faculty; (d) personal attention; (e) peer support; (f) enriched research experience; (g) bridging to the next level; and (h) continuous evaluation (BEST, 2004).

This paper aims to examine the ethics of authentic talent development in socioeconomic context by considering a set of alternative ethical frameworks. It juxtaposes the ideals of civic virtue, which involve a concern for the common good, with the reality that socioeconomic deprivation and sociocultural practices severely constrain talent development opportunities and choice.

The paper draws on several frameworks complementary to the ideals of civic virtue – the basic goods approach, human capital theory, the capabilities approach and the ethic of care – to elucidate the barriers to talent development embodied in sociocultural context, as well as policy and institutional practices to overcoming these barriers.

While multiple ethical frameworks are necessary to fully capture the issues related to authentic talent development in socioeconomic context, a focus on the ethic of care and basic goods provision is an important starting point. There are also a few fundamental starting points for human resource development in responding to ethical concerns regarding authentic talent development.

While the prevailing approach to talent development is implicitly based on a logic of social identity ascription, this paper promotes an alternative approach based on the ethics of civic virtue. While the former is oriented to the support of social hierarchies based on identity, the latter is oriented to fostering both social and human well-being via choice and authentic talent development.