Fostering female belongingness in engineering through the lens of critical engineering agency

• Autores: Allison Godwin, Geoff Potvin
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 31, no. 4, 2015, págs. 938-952
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The need to increase the number of underrepresented groups in engineering is a moral as well as socioeconomic imperative.Women have been traditionally underrepresented in engineering in the U.S.; understanding how women identify withengineering and see a career in engineering as a means to positively impact the world may begin to address this persistentgap. This work reports on a qualitative study which gathered open-ended survey responses from 46 women enrolled incollege engineering. Using the previously-developed Critical Engineering Agency (CEA) framework to understand howwomen identify with physics, math, and engineering, we provide insight into the ways in which women can feel they belongin engineering. Fostering this belongingness may begin to create lasting ties between women and their engineering majorsand may help to retain more women in the first few years of college, when they are more prone to leave.