SEFI @ work: Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day – an international discussion on young women in engineering and technology education

15:00 – 16:30 GMT (UK)/ 16:00 – 17:30 CEST (EU)

In spite of continuous efforts to promote engineering and technology degrees and careers to young women, it remains a male-dominated field in Europe. In OECD countries, fewer than 1 in 3 engineering graduates are female. This low participation of girls and young women in engineering and technology education is likely because of stereotypes and expectations, rather than ability and performance differences in math and physics.

In a recent study by Moote et al (2020), the association of engineering with masculinity is evident in aspirations from age 10. Godwin et al (2016) found a stronger link between women’s agency belief, rather than maths and physics identities, and engineering career choice. Many other studies have identified numerous factors that have been linked to whether young women choose and persist in STEM areas such as interest in science, self-efficacy, role models, and science capital.

For this session we invited colleagues from Brazil, Sweden and the UK to discuss and explore ways to motivate young women to pursue engineering and technology education.

Speakers

Valquíria Villas-Boas (Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Brazil) confirmed

Ulrika Sultan (Linköping University, Sweden) confirmed

Kate Bellingham (University College London, UK) confirmed

Moderators

Bill Williams (Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal; TU Dublin, Ireland)

Inês Direito (University College London, UK)

References

Godwin, A., Potvin, G., Hazari, Z., & Lock, R. (2016). Identity, Critical Agency, and Engineering: An Affective Model for Predicting Engineering as a Career Choice. Journal of Engineering Education, 105(2), 312–340. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20118

Moote, J., Archer, L., DeWitt, J., & MacLeod, E. (2020). Comparing students' engineering and science aspirations from age 10 to 16: Investigating the role of gender, ethnicity, cultural capital, and attitudinal factors. Journal of Engineering Education, 109, 34–51. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20302