Against the tide: Gendered prejudice and disadvantage in engineering

Fatma Küskü, Mustafa Özbilgin*, Lerzan Özkale

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Although a balance has been achieved in the overall numbers of female and male students in higher education in the industrialized countries, vertical sex segregation has remained high as male academics and students continued to outnumber their female counterparts internationally. Gender representation is only one façade of gendered disadvantage in engineering, as complex forms of gendered disadvantage occur in social, cultural, psychological and economic layers of life, where women engineering students find themselves swimming against the tide of prejudice. This article draws on comparative and historical data, and a qualitative study with interviews and a questionnaire survey which generated 603 completed responses from female and male engineering students in Turkey. It seeks to reveal the complex and layered nature of gendered prejudice levelled against female engineering students. The findings suggest that linear formulations of gendered prejudice and disadvantage in engineering study are insufficient to account for the complexity of influences on career choice and their concomitant gendered outcomes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)109-129
Number of pages21
JournalGender, Work and Organization
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2007

Keywords

  • Career choice
  • Engineering study
  • Gender
  • Prejudice
  • Turkey

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