Women withdrawers in engineering studies: Identity formation and learning culture as gendered barriers for persistence?

Abstract

Purpose

Scholarship on women in engineering education mainly focuses on the question of how to attract more women to this subject. The topic concerning women in engineering education is here guided by the question of why women leave engineering studies. The paper aims to examine the main conflicts women encounter in engineering education and to derive implications for interventions suited for strengthening institutional bonding forces.

Design/methodology/approach

The question is approached through case analyses of 40 interviews with women and men (as the control group) who have left their studies. In addition, repertory grids were carried out with all interviewees and analysed. On the basis of these analyses, five types of dropout could be defined. Two case studies with women are presented in detail in this article. These cases are especially representative of two types of dropout that are characterised by high quotas of women.

Findings

The central conflicts of women in engineering education are often either suffering from poor grades or that women being afflicted by a subjective feeling of not gaining a deep understanding of technical phenomena. These two conflicts represent the two pillars of identity formation in engineering education that are necessary to bind students to their studies: passing the exams with good grades and feeling self‐efficacious in the handling of technology.

Originality/value

Up‐to‐date subject‐specific studies on dropout in engineering education – especially with a focus on women – are marginal in Europe, and particularly so in Germany.

Citation

Wolffram, A., Derboven, W. and Winker, G. (2009), "Women withdrawers in engineering studies: Identity formation and learning culture as gendered barriers for persistence?", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150910933622