The Best of Both Worlds: A Women's College and Research Institutions' Engineering Dual-Degree Program

• In Event: Gender Narratives and Institutional Contexts

Abstract

This case study seeks to understand the unique experiences and agentic perspectives and actions of female engineering students in a dual-degree program at a women’s college and a top-tier research institution. It also identifies the facets of both institutions that help these women persist in engineering. O’Meara, Campbell & Terosky’s (2011) agency theory helped guide the interpretation of findings from interviews with program administrators and fifteen program participants. To persist in engineering, students were able to leverage their individual social capital and identities as well as organizational climate and resources, which they could pick and choose from both institutions to have “the best of both worlds.”

Authors

• Alessandra Dinin, North Carolina State University

• Audrey J. Jaeger, North Carolina State University

• Dawn Culpepper, North Carolina State University