Poster #17 - Where Are the Women Engineers? Questioning the Rationale for Expanding Diversity Through "Role Models"

• In Event: 51.082 - MTCC Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: 51.082-2 - Science Teaching and Learning SIG Poster Session

Abstract

To explore the barriers to engineering and the sorting mechanisms which drive attrition of women out of the field, we interviewed men and women engineering professors, administrators, and students in three university engineering programs. Faculty and students identified and rationalized several hostile practices, encouraging women to adopt a more masculine role--deeming them as necessary for maintaining the status of the discipline. Furthermore, in discussing attrition of women from the field, faculty were unable to find any culpability among the ranks of engineering faculty nor were they aware of any immediate changes they could immediately take in their own practice to remedy the gender inequity represented in the classroom. Implications for university teaching and faculty development are discussed.

Authors

• Randy Yerrick, SUNY

• Maureen Valentine

• Jeanne Christman