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I Still Wanna be an Engineer! Women, Education and the Engineering Profession

  1. Context/background. Gender inequity in engineering enrollments at university continues  despite the frequent claim of the unmet demand for more trained professionals. Previous studies have suggested that women lack the necessary cognitive and practical skills as evidenced by their lack of academic achievement in maths and science. In the past decade significant numbers of young women leave school with high achievement in these areas and yet do not take up enrolment in engineering.

  2. Research questions.
  3. Theoretical background. Professional identity, emerging as  a key feature of the problem, is approached through three theoretical frames: Bourdieu’s concept (2000) of habitus in terms of the connection between social context and individual agency. Identity is here conceived as constructed by the ongoing interactions between individual and environment and thus a fluid, changing concept (Shotter & Gergen,1989). Wenger’s notion (1998) of workplaces as comprising “communities of practice” and sites in which identities are formed.

  4. Methodology: mixed methods. Stage 1. Qualitative interview based study of a widespread range of professional engineers, 41 women and 10 men. Stage 2. Survey of 357 engineering workers across 3 large engineering firms, followed by targeted interviews with 44 women and 52 men and focus groups at each site (7.5.7 N=19). Survey data analysed using SPSS; interview data organised using NVIVO.

  5. Findings and analysis
  6. Educational implications

References

  1. Bourdieu, P., 2000. The politics of protest. An interview with Kevin Ovenden. Socialist Review, 42, 18–20.
  2. Shotter, J. and Gergen, K. eds., 1989. Texts of identity. London: Sage.
  3. Wenger, E., 1998. Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press

Author 1: Judith Gill; Judith.Gill@unisa.edu.au
Author 2: Rhonda Sharp; rhonda.sharp@unisa.edu.au
Author 3: Julie Mills; Julie.Mills@unisa.edu.au
Author 4: Suzanne Franzway; Suzanne.Franzway@unisa.edu.au

Article Link: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/teee/2008/00000033/00000004/art00001 }}} [https://stemedhub.org/groups/cleerhub/wiki/issue:1326 : Back to 2009 Winter Issue, Vol. 4, No. 2] [[Include(issues:footer)]]