Shannon K. Gilmartin, Samantha R. Brunhaver, Sara Jordan-Bloch, Gabriela Gall Rosa, Caroline Simard, Sheri D. Sheppard
{"title":"Early-Career Assignments and Workforce Inequality in Engineering","authors":"Shannon K. Gilmartin, Samantha R. Brunhaver, Sara Jordan-Bloch, Gabriela Gall Rosa, Caroline Simard, Sheri D. Sheppard","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2272807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2272807","url":null,"abstract":"Positioned as part of leadership development in many organizations, ‘stretch assignments’ are a type of work assignment that can prove someone’s readiness to advance in their career. Informed by status characteristics theory, our research investigates the frequency and expected outcomes of stretch assignments among recent engineering graduates in the workforce. Findings suggest that early-career stretch assignments, especially assignments involving new and unfamiliar areas, potentially intensify gender and racial/ethnic workforce inequality. Other types of assignments that may be more familiar and clearly-scoped to early-career engineers show a different and less inequality-intensifying pattern. We discuss why early-career engineers’ assignments may be sites of inequality and the need for more focus on organizational processes around career-advancing work.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136022560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Floris van der Marel, Tua Björklund, Sheri Sheppard
{"title":"Moments that Matter: Early-Career Experiences of Diverse Engineers on Different Career Pathways","authors":"Floris van der Marel, Tua Björklund, Sheri Sheppard","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2272791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2272791","url":null,"abstract":"While many early-career engineers in the United States leave the field of engineering in the first few years of their careers, we know little of their early professional experiences and reasoning for career plans. We conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with early-career engineers, comparing the experiences of engineers across intersections of gender and race. In particular, we examine meaningful early-career experiences and how these connect to the innate needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as well as career intentions. Top moments on the job were often first-time experiences and milestones that enhanced the engineers’ sense of competence. Meaningful moments connected to relatedness were more often positive than negative experiences for White men, whereas experiences undermining relatedness were more common for people of color and/or women. Connections to autonomy emerged more in bottom moments, especially for White engineers. Across different intended career pathways, early-career engineers often evaluated their experiences regarding their ability to work effectively and through social validation from peers and managers (or undermined by a lack thereof). The results indicate the need for a greater understanding of early-career affordances in supporting entry and retention in the engineering workforce by promoting individual effectiveness and social validation.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"4 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136376605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Sole Engineering Genius: A Professional Identity Not Fit for the Purpose of Gender Equality Projects","authors":"Kai Lo Andersson, Catharina Landström","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2266416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2266416","url":null,"abstract":"Despite decades of directed efforts gender equality is still a challenge in many university level STEM institutions. Key reasons for this are found in disciplinary and institutional cultures. A crucial cultural element is professional identity. In this article, an ethnographic study of a gender equality program in a technical university in Sweden underpins the identification of a professional identity that we name: the ‘sole engineering genius’. This cultural figure displays features that run counter to measures promoting gender equality. As a component of engineering faculty’s self-perception as well as views of others, this figure provides rationales for rejecting the changes required to end gender inequality. Against the backdrop of research literature, we argue that this professional identity is not a local or national phenomenon, but likely a key factor in academic engineering culture transnationally that may continue to undermine gender equality strategies in STEM institutions.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136063786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘We’re supposed to be at the forefront’: a multiple case study exploring how institutional context shapes engineering diversity and inclusion initiatives","authors":"Stephanie Lezotte","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2267045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2267045","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractResearch suggests the normative culture of engineering perpetuates the marginalization of individuals with excluded identities, contributing to a lack of diversity in academia and the workforce. As evidenced by recent funding opportunities, stakeholders view diversity and inclusion (D&I) as critical to broadening participation, and many engineering units have espoused their commitment to D&I efforts. However, additional research is needed to better understand how institutional contexts shape D&I efforts occurring in academic engineering units. This multiple case study examined engineering units at three U.S. universities that received the same National Science Foundation grant to cultivate an inclusive engineering culture. Drawing from the field of organizational theory, I analyzed data from 11 interviews and 209 pages of documents to understand how university context shaped engineering D&I efforts. The theory of neoinstitutionalism was used as a lens to understand similarities and differences among the cases. Findings suggest D&I efforts were heavily shaped by institutional contexts including the desire for prestige, availability of resources, and pressure from internal and external stakeholders. Implications for policymakers, funding agencies, and engineering leaders point to the need to re-imagine markers of engineering education legitimacy.KEYWORDS: Diversity and inclusionEngineering education reformNeoinstitutionalism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 ‘National Science Foundation’.2 Leydens and Lucena, Engineering Justice.3 Lezotte, “Making Sense of Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering.”4 Ibid.5 DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited.”6 Ibid. and March, “Footnotes to Organizational Change.” Also see Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations.”7 Suchman, “Managing Legitimacy,” 574.8 Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations”; Meyer and Scott, “Centralization and the Legitimacy Problems of Local Governments.”9 Meyer, Scott, and Deal, “Institutional and Technical Sources of Organizational Structure.”10 Deephouse et al., “Organizational Legitimacy.”11 Mintzberg, “Structure in 5’s.”12 Etzioni, “Authority Structure and Organizational Effectiveness.”13 Cohen and March, “Leadership in an Organized Anarchy.”14 Scott, Organizations.15 Keup et al., “Organizational Culture and Institutional Transformation.”16 Shadle, Marker, and Earl, “Faculty Drivers and Barriers.”17 Argyris, “Initiating Change that Perseveres.”18 Tierney, “Organizational Culture in Higher Education.”19 Kotter, “Leading Change.”20 Clark, “The Contradictions of Change in Academic Systems,” 10121 DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited.”22 Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations,” 341.23 Daft and Weick, “Toward a Model of Organizations as Interpretation Systems”; Pfeffer and Salancik, The External Control of Organizations.24 DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited”; Suchman, “Ma","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"243 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135352051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Glimpse into the Gendered Dynamics in Industrial Design through the Podcast Discourse","authors":"Kristin A. Bartlett, Stephanie M. Masta","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2259368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2259368","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractIndustrial design is a male-dominated profession, though the reasons for its persistent gender disparity have not been as well-researched as in other STEM disciplines. This work analyzes recent podcast discourse for insights regarding gender dynamics in the US industrial design industry. Feminist critical discourse analysis was applied to episodes from two popular industrial design podcasts in which the podcast hosts, who are industrial designers or design educators, interview professional industrial designers. We found that women designers were given less airtime in the podcasts, mentioned less frequently, and spoken of less positively than men designers. Areas where women industrial designers more commonly work, such as toy design, were devalued, while design consultancies focusing on consumer electronics were highly valued. Skills in design that were more closely linked with manufacturing engineering, such as computer-aided design, were also valued more highly than ‘softer’ design skills like user research. Thus, the podcast discourse contributed to the masculinization of the industrial design profession and the devaluing of women in the field. We conclude that in order to foster a more inclusive culture within the discipline of industrial design, the devaluing of women designers and feminized subdisciplines should be acknowledged and addressed.KEYWORDS: Industrial designgenderpodcastsdiscourse analysiswomenfeminist technology studies AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank Dr. Sharra Vostral for providing feedback on early drafts of the paper, and for her guidance and direction regarding the theoretical framework.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 IDSA HQ, “Toward a Data-Informed Future.”2 Coroflot, “Design Salary Guide.”3 IDSA HQ, “Toward a Data-Informed Future.”4 Ibid.5 Silverstein and Sayre, “The Female Economy.”6 Hewlett, Marshall and Sherbin, “How Diversity Can Drive Innovation.”7 Cook and Kongcharoen, “The Idea Gap in Pink and Black.”8 Herring, “Does Diversity Pay?”9 Temm, “If You Meet the Expectations of Women, You Exceed The Expectations of Men”.10 Ensmenger, “‘Beards, Sandals, and Other Signs of Rugged Individualism.’”11 Canney and Bielefeldt, “Gender Differences in the Social Responsibility Attitudes of Engineering Students and How They Change Over Time”; Faulkner, “`Nuts and Bolts and People’”; Smith and Gayles, “‘Girl Power’: Gendered Academic and Workplace Experiences of College Women in Engineering”; Seron et al., “‘I Am Not a Feminist, But … ’”12 Rhoton, “Distancing as a Gendered Barrier.”13 Ronen, “The Postfeminist Ideology at Work.”14 Lockhart and Miller, “Destined to Design?”; Lockhart, Cathy and Miller, Evonne, “Studying Industrial Design.”15 Reimer, “‘It’s Just a Very Male Industry.’”16 McMahon and Kiernan, “Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves?”17 Yang, “Gender Differences in Industrial Design Students’ Vocation Maturity and Career Choices in Taiwanese Universi","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135064143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discursive Boundary Work around Gender, Inclusion, and Exclusion in Engineering and Industrial Design","authors":"Kacey Beddoes","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2267405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2267405","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134971250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Battles Over Social Justice, Caste, and Neo-Liberalism: A Review of ‘The Battle for IITs: A Defense of Meritocracy’","authors":"Yogita Suresh","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2225776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2225776","url":null,"abstract":"The Battle for IITs: a Defense of Meritocracy published in 2023, written by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan, is a new contribution to defend the crème de la crème of the Indian Institute(s) of Technology (IIT) with theoretical inconsistencies, unscientific reasoning, and a vicious bending of the reality of social and economic oppression in the Indian landscape. The bookwas launched at the International Book Fair, NewDelhi, andwas published as part of the series Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0. The book is a controversial addition to the debate on India’s most prestigious and elite technical institutes: the Indian Institute of Technologies. Bleakly put, the authors accuse social justice missions and anti-caste narratives in the IITs as forces breaking India from its scientific pursuits and diminishing the individual liberty of citizens. The outrageous claims presented in the Battle for IITs appears at a time when 122 students have committed suicide between the period of 2014–2021 in elite engineering campuses.1 Most of these students belong to the marginalized caste groups in the Hindu caste system, of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) andOther Backward Communities (OBC). These groups are protected under law and a percentage of seats are reserved for them in public educational institutions. The recent tragic suicide of a Dalit first year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) student, Darshan Solanki, at IIT Bombay sparked a nationwide debate on how these institutes have turned murderous in their pursuit to divide and exclude students along gender and caste-lines, serving as a distinct node structuring the globalized neo-liberal economy. The journal Nature recently published data secured through the Right to Information Act, on the composition of students in elite engineering institutes in India.2 The data revealed that ‘Universities in India are failing to meet government quotas for marginalized communities in India’. Further, they noted how figures drop drastically at higher academic levels. Gender disparity has been amajor point of concern when it comes to the IITs. Even after the introduction of the supernumerary quota for women students in the IITs, in the year 2018–2019, the percentage of women has remained at a mere 20% in the IITs.3 Malhotra and Viswanathan also attempt to defend the gender disparity in the IITs. They argue","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"168 - 175"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45687985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anastasia M. K. Schauer, Hunter Schaufel, Katherine Fu
{"title":"The Makeup of a Makerspace: The Impact of Stereotyping, Self-Efficacy, and Physical Design on Women’s Interactions with an Academic Makerspace","authors":"Anastasia M. K. Schauer, Hunter Schaufel, Katherine Fu","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2224016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2224016","url":null,"abstract":"This article applies a qualitative ethnographic research approach to explore the perceptions of highly-skilled makers of gender and its role in their makerspace. It explores two research topics – common problems impacting makerspaces and the role of gender in makerspaces – and then analyses the results in the context of their impact on women’s sense of self-efficacy. Various factors relating to the overall makerspace culture contribute to women’s lowered sense of self-efficacy. In the makerspace under study in this work, a feminine-stereotyped Craft Area had been integrated among the more ‘traditional’ makerspace equipment, affecting women’s participation in the space. Ergonomic and accessibility problems in the masculine-stereotyped areas of the makerspace were more likely to negatively impact women’s use of the space. We discuss potential solutions to common problems in the makerspace and share recommendations to create a more universally accessible makerspace and impart the benefits of experiential learning more equitably.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"70 1","pages":"122 - 143"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59984210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Y. Patrick, M. Wisnioski, L. Mcnair, D. Ozkan, David P. Reeping, Thomas L. Martin, Luke F. Lester, S. Dunning, Ben Knapp, Liesl Baum Walker, Chelsea E. Haines
{"title":"In it for the Long Haul: The Groundwork of Interdisciplinary Culture Change in Engineering Education Reform","authors":"A. Y. Patrick, M. Wisnioski, L. Mcnair, D. Ozkan, David P. Reeping, Thomas L. Martin, Luke F. Lester, S. Dunning, Ben Knapp, Liesl Baum Walker, Chelsea E. Haines","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2243608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2243608","url":null,"abstract":"How do STS scholars and engineering educators work together over an extended period to make change? In 2015, the National Science Foundation created the Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) initiative to address persistent challenges in engineering education. A distinguishing feature of RED was its focus on culture change via interdisciplinary teams that brought social scientists and engineering education researchers into long-term departmental planning. We analyze how this national imperative translated into local practice. Focusing on the groundwork of critical participation over a six-year period, we reconstruct our visible and invisible negotiations as we worked to enact culture change. We do so to analyze the often unexamined mental, social, cultural, and political labor of critical participation that make interdisciplinary culture change possible. Attention to this groundwork brings out essential differences between the revolutionary framing of interventions like RED and the evolutionary practices of achieving them over the long haul.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"144 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48660446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Language Matters: Writing for <i>Engineering Studies</i>","authors":"Jessica M. Smith","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2243774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2243774","url":null,"abstract":"One of the things I appreciate about the engineering studies community is that we are welcoming of new scholars, both those who are early in their career and those who are turning to engineering studies after having developed their career in other academic spaces. Our reviewers are generous with their time and attention to manuscripts, and our conferences, workshops and other meet-ups are always lively. If you have not yet connected with our International Network for Engineering Studies to keep in touch, please do so by visiting https://www.inesweb.org/. Sometimes the most challenging barriers to participation in new intellectual networks are the unspoken rules about how we write. In an effort to demystify our editorial review process, I will share a few of the common patterns that I am noticing so that potential authors can write with them in mind.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136375136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}