Gendered Social Practices in First Year Engineering: Alliance or Alienation? [Keynote Symposium - "Lost in transition”: student alienation in the transition to University]

At a time when there is a shortage of students in engineering disciplines in the UK, the ESRC-funded ‘Mathematics learning, identity and educational practice: the transition into higher education’ shed light into the gendered cultures, epistemes and social practices involved in engineering in higher education, and specifically during transition to undergraduate engineering programmes. These practices affect and influence both men and women, but the majority of previous research focuses on the women alone, and often has positioned the ‘lack of women going into engineering’ as ‘a problem’ or alternatively, has placed the women as ‘victims’ of engineering culture. This paper hypothesises that the values and norms of the engineering culture shape men’s and women’s dispositions and hence their engineering identities and careers. Thus, masculinities in engineering in general – and those in university engineering in particular - mediate the students’ professional and learning relationships. As a consequence, these gendered social practices may not only be deterring women from pursuing careers in engineering but also have the effect of discouraging some of their male counterparts who do not wish to be associated with engineering cultures. Implications for policy and practice will also be discussed.