Gendered Perceptions of Typical Engineers across Specialties for Engineering Majors

• In Event: 435 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Race, Gender and STEM

Abstract

Young women do not choose to be engineers nearly as often as young men, and they tend to cluster in particular specialties when they do. In this paper we examine these patterns and the role of gender schemas as applied to perceptions of typical engineers in understanding the choices that young women make in terms of engineering specialties. We use Part 1 of two waves of survey data collected from first-year engineering students at a large Midwestern university in the fall of 2014. Respondents were asked to score typical engineers on 60 items from the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) (Bem 1974). Our preliminary results show that young women consider the typical engineer to be more masculine compared to the impressions gathered from young men. In addition, women cluster in specialty areas that they describe as less masculine. Our continuing analyses will incorporate additional data from Part 2 of the survey and consider measures of confidence and self-efficacy.

Authors

• Margaret S. Kelley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Kimberley Bryan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign