Feminist Theory in Three Engineering Education Journals: 1995-–2008

Journal of Engineering Education April 2011, Vol. 100, No. 2, pp. 281–303 © 2011 ASEE. http://www.jee.org Feminist Theory in Three Engineering Education Journals: 1995–2008 KACEY BEDDOES AND MAURA BORREGO Virginia Tech BACKGROUND Women remain underrepresented in engineering despite decades of effort. Feminist theory may explain why some well-intentioned efforts actually reinforce the very conditions they seek to change. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) Our purpose is to understand and advance the use of feminist theory in engineering education research towards the goals of increasing gender diversity and equity in engineering. Specifically, we seek to address the following questions: How has feminist theory been engaged within engineering education scholarship? And what opportunities exist for further engagement? DESIGN/METHOD We analyzed articles from Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), European Journal of Engineering (EJEE), and International Journal of Engineering Education (IJEE) that had women or gender as a central part of their studies. Titles, keywords, and abstracts for every article in the journals were reviewed for the years 1995-2008. The 88 articles directly addressing gender or women in engineering were analyzed to determine their level of engagement with feminist theory. RESULTS Feminist theory is not widely engaged or systematically developed in this scholarship. Most work rests upon implicitly liberal and standpoint feminist theories, but a minority of articles point to intersectional, interactional, and masculinity studies approaches. We identified several ways in which deeper engagement with a wider range of feminist theories can benefit engineering education scholarship. CONCLUSIONS Feminist theory is underutilized within engineering education scholarship. Further engagement with, and systematic development of, feminist theory could be one beneficial way to move the field forward. KEYWORDS feminist theory, gender, women INTRODUCTION Despite a thirty-year history of initiatives and interventions to recruit and retain female engineering students, women remain a minority in engineering in many parts of the world (Gill, Sharp, Mills, & Franzway, 2008), and enrollments of female engineering students in Australia and the U.S. have declined (Grose, 2006; Mills, Ayre, & Gill, 2008). Clearly, current strategies alone are not enough. In this article, we seek to explore how deeper engagement with feminist theory would help to explain the complex problem of underrepresentation and suggest a promising path forward. Theories which have been used to study women in engineering include self-efficacy, communities of practice and situated cognition/learning, mentoring, career choice, team 281 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 functions, identity formation, critical cultural theory, cultural capital, and structuralism. Many of these are common throughout the broader engineering education literature. Although such theories are yielding valuable explanations, we argue that explicitly feminist theories are also needed to illuminate deep-rooted gender issues in engineering education. For example, self-efficacy, as applied to studies of engineering students, acknowledges the experiences of women as worthy of study but risks essentializing these experiences as similar for all women engineering students and risks perpetuating negative views of women as overly sensitive or emotional. Indeed the tendency in prior research has been to “cast women in a deficit role, aggregating them into one category, and viewing them as ‘other’…” (Godfrey, 2003, p. 13). Even when authors do not explicitly discuss the feminist theory that informs their work, there can be embedded assumptions and limitations in their approaches that a discussion of feminist theory can help identify and illuminate. As we discuss in the Literature Review, there is evidence of growing interest in integrating feminist perspectives into engineering education, but the use of feminist theory in mainstream engineering education journals is not widespread. It is a problem if the insights feminist theory provides are not making it into the hands of engineering educators who need to understand and internalize them if we ever hope to address the tremendous challenges to diversity and equity in engineering. Thus, our purpose is to understand and advance the use of feminist theory in engineering education research towards the goals of increasing gender diversity and equity in engineering. Specifically, we seek to address the following questions: 1. How has feminist theory been engaged within engineering education scholarship? 2. What opportunities exist for further engagement with feminist theories? As a content analysis—or a detailed and systematic examination of texts to identify patterns and themes (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005, p. 142), this paper advances current knowledge on the state of feminist theory in engineering education research; however we also intend for the literature review to contribute an overview of pertinent feminist thought for the broader engineering education community. This analysis brings together two distinct lines of inquiry within and around the field of engineering education. First, it is a synthesis of relevant literature on women in engineering, comprising both a broader literature review of feminist theory and a systematic analysis of women in engineering articles. Second, it is yet another publication analysis to appear in Journal of Engineering Education (Borrego, 2007b; Koro-Ljungberg & Douglas, 2008; Wankat, 1999; Whitin & Sheppard, 2004) highlighting opportunities to improve the quality of engineering education research through engagement with methods, theory, and literature from social sciences. We note that in analyzing an international sample of 88 articles in three journals over 14 years, we are advancing the rigor of this line of inquiry. Additionally, in providing substantive recommendations for engaging women in engineering literature with feminist theory, we seek to critique and advance that line of research-and ultimately the status of women in engineering as well. We begin by briefly discussing the use of theory in engineering education, feminist theory in other fields, and features of engineering that pose a challenge to incorporation of feminist theory, based on the histories of other fields. We then discuss five branches of feminist theory that are related to the articles in our dataset: liberal, standpoint, intersectional, interactional, and masculinity studies. Our content analysis methods are presented 282 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education in detail, followed by results describing the use of the five branches of feminist theory in engineering education articles. We demonstrate, as others have argued (Nelson & Pawley, 2010), that several key branches of feminist thought are underutilized within engineering education scholarship and argue that deeper engagement with a wide range of feminist theories is one way forward for those concerned with increasing the participation of women in engineering and changing the cultures of engineering education. LITERATURE REVIEW The Importance of Theory in Engineering Education Research The importance of theoretically sound and consistent studies is increasingly recognized within education research (Shavelson & Towne, 2002). Theoretically grounded work connects researchers, allows generalizations across studies, and advances the field of engineering education by avoiding re-inventing the wheel. Moreover, as theory is intended to be transferable it is a potentially important link between engineering educators and gender studies scholars, thus promoting interdisciplinary scholarship in the complex research topic of women in engineering. Yet, as Borrego (2007a) and Koro-Ljungberg and Douglas (2008) have demonstrated, much engineering education scholarship is still characterized by a lack of explicit and consistent theoretical engagement. Specific to research on women in engineering, Jawitz and Case argue that “feminist perspectives have much to offer in providing an explanation of women’s experiences in engineering and the resistance of the status quo to substantial change” (2002, p. 390), and Nelson and Pawley recommend the inclusion and testing of more gender theories in engineering education research (2010). Feminist Theory in Academic Disciplines Many scholars have studied feminist theory’s influence on a wide range of other fields and disciplines (Gelsthorpe & Morris, 1988; Hutchings, 2008; Paludi & Steuernagel, 1990; N. Riley, 1999; Schiebinger, 2001; Spender, 1981; Stacey & Thorne, 1985; Stanton & Stewart, 1998; Strathern, 1987). The established line of inquiry on the relationship between feminist theory and disciplinary development can provide a link to complementary perspectives and expertise that inform the present study and may ultimately improve the status of women in engineering. It should be noted that while Women’s Studies and Gender Studies can be considered fields in their own right, with established journals, departments, degrees, etc., feminist theory is a collection of thought that encompasses a larger intellectual space, existing inside other fields as well. Specific Challenges in Engineering (Education) Factors that limit engagement with feminist theory within a discipline have been identified by Stacey & Thorne (1985) and Riley (1999). Post-positivist epistemologies, aversion to social theory, and quantitative research traditions inhibit the reach of feminist theory into a discipline, while interpretive epistemologies, inclination toward social theory, and qualitative research support it (Riley, 1999; Stacey & Thorne, 1985). Engineering education has to date been characterized by the former traits (Borrego, 2007a; Douglas, KoroLjungberg, & Borrego, 2010; Koro-Ljungberg & Douglas, 2008). Moreover, it has been argued that the closer a field is to national interests, the less impact feminist theory will have (Burawoy, 1996), and as engineering is closely aligned with national economic, 283 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 political, and military interests (Downey & Lucena, 2004; Lucena, 2005; Riley, 2008) that proximity is likely another inhibiting factor in engineering education. On the other hand, there are encouraging signs that some within engineering education are already advocating engagement with feminist theory. In the U.S., for instance, papers and special sessions at the annual Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference, as well as recent journal articles on feminisms in engineering education and feminist engineering are promising (Eschenbach, Cashman, Waller, & Lord, 2005; Lord, Cashman, Eschenbach, & Waller, 2005; Lord, Eschenbach, Waller, & Cashman, 2004; Pawley, Riley, Lord, & Harding, 2009; Riley, Catalano, Pawley, & Tucker, 2007; Riley, Pawley, Tucker, & Catalano, 2009; Tucker, Pawley, Riley, & Catalano, 2008; Udén, 2009; Waller, 2005a, 2005b). In fact, the first special session on feminism at FIE in 2004 (Lord et al., 2004) won the Helen Plants Award for best non-traditional session. In both the U.S. and Australia there are now feminist engineering education research groups (Mills, Gill, Franzway, & Sharp, 2009; Pawley, 2010). And in Europe, the 1st European Conference on Gender and Diversity in Engineering and Science was held in September 2009, with the aim of bringing “arguments from the gender sciences” to an engineering audience (VDI, 2009). In sum, there are specific characteristics of engineering and engineering education that suggest engagement with feminist theory will pose a challenge. Nonetheless, there are clear signs of interest in engaging engineering educators and engineering education researchers with feminist theory. To help understand and advance these efforts, we describe feminist theories generally and then present empirical analysis of how they have been used in engineering education publications. Five Branches of Feminist Thought Feminist theory is far from a monolithic enterprise (Flax, 1987). Different branches of feminist theory—which are not mutually exclusive lines of thought, but, rather, are characterized by overlap and interplay—approach and answer questions of gender construction and interactions differently. A summary of the theories discussed in this paper is presented in Table 1. These are by no means the only kinds of feminist thought that exist, nor are they the only ones with the potential to benefit engineering (education); for instance, Riley et al. discuss others (2009). However, we suggest that the theories in Table 1 are currently the most relevant to women in engineering research, as evidenced by their use in the articles in our dataset. Liberal feminist theory. Liberal feminism seeks to ensure the equal rights, opportunities, and treatment of women (Lorber, 2001, pp. 26–27; Zalewski, 2000, pp. 5–7). In other words, “first, to make sure the rules of the game are fair, and second, to make certain that none of the runners in the race for society’s goods and services is systematically disadvantaged” (Tong, 2009, p. 2). The gendered division of labor, stereotyped jobs, unequal pay, workplace discrimination, and glass ceilings have all been targeted for reform by liberal feminists. The liberal tradition can be traced back to the 19th and 20th centuries in struggles for equal rights, but emerged in the U.S. most strongly in the 1960s and 1970s, while the other branches generally emerged later in the 1980s and 1990s (Lorber, 2001). Liberal approaches can certainly be valuable; however, scholars should be aware of their limitations, particularly that they do not necessarily deconstruct problematic hierarchical social categories and tends to universalize white, western, middle class women. For example, critics of liberal feminism would contend that Women in Engineering initiatives that 284 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education TABLE 1 Overview of Branches of Feminist Theory Discussed in this Analysis focus only on attracting women to (and retaining them in) the current masculine culture of engineering are problematic if they do not address the biases and limitations of that culture. As readers will see, the vast majority of publications in the dataset are (implicitly) in the liberal tradition. Standpoint feminist theory. Standpoint feminism takes patriarchy, or the subordination of women by men, as an integral component of Western culture; one that permeates its ideology, values, and institutions (Lorber, 2001, pp. 176-194). Because our institutions are patriarchal, then, standpoint feminism is needed as a corrective. The underlying belief is that knowledge is rooted in experience, and because men and women live different experiences, and have different realities, they also have different knowledge and ways of knowing. Standpoint feminism is unique in its explicit ties to science. It maintains that scientific knowledge in a “gender-stratified society” has marginalized women’s experiences and has 285 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 therefore produced knowledge biased by male interests and perspectives. In standpoint theory, women’s experiences are “distinctive resources, which are not used by conventional researchers, that enable feminism to produce empirically more accurate descriptions and theoretically richer explanations” (Harding, 2001, p. 145). The key merits of standpoint feminism are ways to name and study aspects of women’s experiences that are typically hidden and ignored as legitimate sites of knowledge. However, standpoint theory has been criticized for its tendency to universalize white, western, middle class women, to essentialize all women, and to omit other identity markers (Lorber, 2001, pp. 184-190; Tanesini, 1999, pp. 144-149). For example, the “experiences of female engineering students” may be presented monolithically, implying that all women experience engineering in the same ways. Another issue that researchers should be aware of is that the problems identified during standpoint research can be perceived as problems with women rather than problems with engineering education (or any other research setting). (Locating the problem with women rather than engineering education often happens in with the liberal approach as well.) The site of reform is then women themselves, with recommendations such as measures to improve self-efficacy, for instance, which is a problem if larger structural and cultural problems are never challenged. Intersectional feminist theory. Some of the potential problems with standpoint theory can be addressed by attention to intersectional gender theories (sometimes called “multicultural”). Intersectional feminism seeks to understand gender in relation to other identities or hierarchies such as race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and nationality that form complex intertwinings of identity and oppression of marginalized groups. According to intersectional thought, gender alone is neither a total identity nor universally experienced. Therefore, it is problematic to talk about women as a universal group because doing so erases the complexities of identity and tends to privilege a dominant group as representative of all women. Intersectional approaches draw on influential bodies on scholarship on Black feminism and Chicana feminism, as an example (Berger & Guidroz, 2009; Collins, 1997, 2000; García, 1997; Moraga & Anzaldua, 1983; The Combahee River Collective, 1997). Riley discusses several notable intersectional studies in engineering education (Riley, 2008, pp. 84–85). In Science and Technology Studies (STS) more specifically, Harding’s (2006) work on multicultural science is an example of how intersectional approaches reveal otherwise hidden aspects of the ways in which gender biases interact with other cultural biases to shape science. Interactional feminist theory. Interactional feminism is concerned with the processes in everyday life that create and re-create gender. The contribution of theorists such as West, Fenstermaker, Zimmerman, and Butler has been to emphasize the role that daily actions and interpersonal interactions play in gender construction and maintenance (Fenstermaker et al., 1991; Lloyd, 2007; Lorber, 2001; West & Fenstermaker, 1995). The social construction of gender not only produces the differences between men’s and women’s characteristics and behavior, it also produces gender inequality by building dominance and subordination into gendered relationships. Interactional theories could point to everyday behaviors and interactions that are problematic and produce new explanations as to how and why masculine biases persist in engineering education. Examples of everyday behaviors to pay attention to could include tasks that are split along gender lines in engineering classrooms or labs (e.g., when men work with equipment and women write group reports), and subtle instances of discrimination. One limitation of interactional approaches is that they 286 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education have the potential to hide larger structural factors, such as those highlighted by masculinity studies. Interactional feminist theory is an example of post-structural or postmodern theorizing. Postmodern feminisms challenge fixed and binary gender identities and categories. Postmodern feminist theorists like Judith Butler and Joan Scott argue that gender does not exist as any original referent; it exists only in the ways in which society continually (re)produces it, only as a sign. A central feature of postmodern theorizing is that it is anti-foundational and deconstructive (Zalewski, 2000, p. 22). Rather than take certain categories or identities, including gender, as given, postmodernists interrogate those categories and attempt to understand how they are produced and how they acquire values and meanings so that they can be remade or resignified. Much work in masculinity studies is similarly antifoundational. Masculinity studies. Many gender theorists have highlighted the need to focus on masculinity as a much-needed corrective to the tendency in gender studies to focus on women. Masculinity studies shifts the attention from women to men and recognizes multiple masculinities. However, it is also recognized that masculinity and femininity are co-created so that knowledge about femininity is also being produced. Scholars discuss multiple masculinities to identify the traits that are most valued by patriarchal society. Like intersectional feminism, masculinity studies recognizes that privilege also accrues along racial, ethnic, class, and sexuality lines. Masculine characteristics of engineering include competitive (as opposed to collaborative) classroom environments and design projects that are decontextualized or have military- or weapons-related applications only. To the extent that the masculinity studies approach is concerned with how gender is (re)produced, it too can be considered a postmodern approach. Many of the contributions of STS have been in documenting and elucidating how Western science and technology came to be gendered masculine. STS scholarship focuses on using historical, philosophical, anthropological, and sociological methods to challenge easy and common assumptions about the social neutrality of science and technology. For example, Oldenziel (1999) documents the work that went into solidifying engineering and technology as white, middle-class, male enterprises, while Wajcman (1991) demonstrates how gendered social relationships both influence and in turn are shaped by the technologies we create. Others also critically examine the connections between masculinity and western science (Bordo, 1987; Haraway, 1989; Harding, 2006; Keller, 1985). Indeed, the usefulness of STS insights is demonstrated by the fact that the articles in our dataset that fall in our masculinity studies category tend to also engage STS scholarship such as the work cited earlier. Despite these connections, however, STS knowledge has not made wide-spread inroads into engineering education as denials of biases are still the norm (Mills & Gill, 2009; Riley, 2008). Engineering educators and the students Mills and Gill surveyed maintained that engineering was gender-neutral. Therefore, research focused on men and masculinity holds much untapped promise for engineering education research agendas. Perhaps the most valuable insight it offers is that we should study how engineering (education) itself gets (re)produced with masculine biases, rather than focusing exclusively on women. Advocates of masculinity studies would also emphasize the need to understand the role that sexual orientation plays in engineering education, which is an area where there is a dearth of scholarship (Cech & Waidzunas, 2009, 2011; Riley, 2008). 287 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 METHODS Data Sources This study was a content analysis (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005) of publications from three leading English-language engineering education journals: Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE), and International Journal of Engineering Education (IJEE). For the years 1995-2008, each journal was systematically reviewed to identify articles with a focus on either women or gender. The time frame was selected for practical reasons; it offers a large but manageable number of articles. Titles, keywords and abstracts for all articles were reviewed and those determined to have women or gender as a central subject—as indicated by the presence of select terms such as gender, women, female, girl, underrepresentation, minority, diversity, feminine, masculine, recruitment, retention—were collected and entered into an EndNote database. Some articles that were originally included were later excluded when a full reading of the article revealed that women or gender was not a central focus of the study. For example, we originally included articles with keywords and titles like “minority engineering programs,” and “underrepresentation,” but if the body of an article was only about racial or ethnic minorities, it was later excluded. Articles that used gender as a variable and only compared male TABLE 2 Number of Publications on Women and/or Gender per Journal per Year 288 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education TABLE 3 Geographic and Disciplinary Distribution of Publications 289 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 and female students as one part of a larger study were also excluded (but we note that these would have been classified as liberal feminism). Table 2 lists the resulting number of articles per journal per year. Table 3 presents a summary of the countries and disciplines represented in the dataset. Included in the country and regions counts are the seven international collaborations found in the dataset: Finland and the U.K.; Norway and Sweden; U.S. and Canada; U.S. and Thailand; Palestine and Germany; and U.S. and Germany, with the same collaborators having two articles. Identifying disciplinary affiliations proved challenging given the unequal attention paid to listing them in each journal, the international differences in disciplinary structures and terminology, and the non-standardized ways in which biographies are written across the journals. Within these constraints, we identified as accurately as possible the disciplinary affiliations based upon academic training and current employment. While we acknowledge that authors’ current departmental and organizational affiliations cannot be taken as absolute indicators of the disciplinary training they have received, we nonetheless suggest that they still largely correspond to general trends in either STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) or social science backgrounds. Data Analysis Qualifying publications from each journal were read in their entirety and analyzed to determine the theoretical framework(s) used by the author(s). Those articles found to engage feminist theoretical frameworks were reviewed in greater detail to ascertain the type of feminist theory engaged, either implicitly or explicitly. One author read each article and determined if it fell within one of our feminist theory categories based upon (a) any explicitly stated theoretical framework, (b) implicit theoretical foundations, and/or (c) direct relevance to one of the branches of feminist theory. A second author categorized a subset (n = 12), and inconsistencies were discussed until agreement was reached. Since few publications explicitly labeled feminist theories and perspectives, and because of overlap between the branches themselves, some articles were considered to be examples of multiple branches of feminist theory. Disciplinary and geographic affiliations of authors were then compared to determine if any trends or relationships could be identified between the use of different feminist theories and discipline, region, or date of publication, but no trends were found. During data analysis, we encountered a key tension in our interdisciplinary work. Strict categorization of such a large number of articles is unusual in the feminist literature. Rather, a few specific articles would be used as examples to discuss the current uses of feminist theory in engineering education research. However, norms of engineering education dictate that in order to make credible claims, we must present a rigorous accounting of our categorization results and procedures. Therefore, in the Appendix we list the number of articles we put in each category along with several examples from each category. Problematic aspects of this approach are discussed in the next section. Limitations We recognize the limitations of our dataset, including that there is much relevant work published in conference proceedings, in non-English language sources, in national and in regional outlets. We maintain that the large timeframe (14 years) of this study as well as the fact that journals represent more significant and long-term work justifies the exclusion of conference proceedings. Although we recognize that engineering education researchers do publish in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering and other journals focused on women’s studies, we chose not to include these journals. 290 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education First and foremost, we are interested in engineering education specifically (and more generally as an emergent research field) operationally defined as having engineering academics as the primary audience. Our argument is that while feminist thought is being increasingly applied to study engineering settings, these perspectives have not yet penetrated mainstream engineering education discourse. A related limitation of the dataset is that bounding it necessarily required interpretation regarding which publications to include. Often, this came down to a matter of how the authors themselves chose to frame their articles. Because the goal was to look for feminist theory, we could exclude those initial articles that only dealt with comparing men and women as a convenient variable peripheral to the primary research questions. Next, anyone familiar with the body of literature represented in this dataset or with the intricacies of feminist theories will understand the inherent difficulties of grouping articles into tidy categories as other analyses (e.g., Koro-Ljungberg & Douglas, 2008) have done. As Koro-Ljungberg and Douglas document, reference lists and literature reviews are insufficient for determining whether or how a study actually engages theory in its process and analysis. Also similar to their study, we found significant differences in the depth and extent of literature reviews, theory, methods, and discussion sections as well as inconsistencies between various sections within a given article. We had a large, unwieldy dataset, the content of which we could not control. Social science necessarily involves ordering the messy and complex into legible, stable, and understandable boundaries, patterns, and schemes (Bowker & Star, 1999; Law, 2004; Law & Mol, 2002). Finally, readers should separate the work represented in our dataset from the skills of the researchers themselves or the field as a whole and take it as evidence of what the authors could successfully publish in engineering education journals. As with any empirical study, we had to define a manageable scope. However, we argue that our dataset is large enough and broad enough to represent trends and opportunities in women in engineering research in engineering education. We hope that the limitations of our study point to fruitful research areas for others. This study is meant to start a conversation, not to finish one. FINDINGS Liberal Feminist Theory The majority of articles in our dataset implicitly accept a liberal feminist conceptualization of gender and of women’s underrepresentation in engineering, i.e., we can take the categories of men and women as givens, and that we can study women, often by comparison to male students, to better understand their underrepresentation. Yet there is no discussion of liberal feminist theory and no explicit recognition that they are engaging liberal feminist thought. In general, the major concerns of the liberal articles include: comparing differences between men’s and women’s academic achievements; documenting recruitment and retention rates; describing and assessing an intervention aimed at women; and understanding why women enter and leave engineering programs, including the effects of pre-college preparation and admissions policies. Within this group of articles, however, the use of theory varies greatly. The studies range from large-scale quantitative work that engages no discernible theory whatsoever, to qualitative work that systematically begins a study with a theory and carries it through the analysis, such as Hutchison-Green et al. (2008). 291 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 Standpoint Feminist Theory In our dataset, those that studied women students’ experiences and beliefs, thereby asserting women’s experiences and perspectives as valuable and worthy of study, suggest recognition of the core tenet of standpoint theory. For example, Foor et al., suggest a standpoint framework: As an outsider, she offers a view that can be painful for those inside to hear. According to LeCompte [4], the words of the silenced shine a sometimes unflattering light on existing social and institutional structures and hierarchies of power that are invisible to those in the mainstream. Her voice, and others like her, can be muted by the disenfranchisement that comes from inexperience with the culture of academia. (Foor, Walden, & Trytten, 2007, p. 103) Speaking similarly of her research subjects, Ingram states, “As women, actively engaged in a male-dominated profession for two decades, they have a unique perspective on what barriers as well as opportunities exist for women in this field over time” (Ingram, 2007, p. 954). And Ambrose et al. explain that conversations with women are needed to fill in gaps left by statistics in order to guide actions aimed at retaining more women (Ambrose, Lazarus, & Nair, 1998, p. 363). However, only McLoughlin (2005) explicitly discusses standpoint theory as part of the methodology itself and explains its importance. These studies are cited as examples that explicitly explain researchers’ choices to listen to women’s voices. It could be argued that any of the studies that aim to understand women’s experiences engage standpoint feminism to some extent. Yet the theoretical and methodological differences between the articles in this category are significant, and they mean that the extent to which they capture women’s voices and unique experiences varies greatly. We were uncomfortable with demarcating this category too narrowly, for reasons discussed later, but feel it is important to note that there is a broad spectrum represented here, with work such as McLoughlin’s at one end and quantitative surveys at the other. McLoughlin’s paper demonstrates that such an approach is useful in obtaining insights not gained when research begins with too many assumptions about women’s experiences or needs. A distinguishing characteristic of standpoint theories is that women’s experiences should be the starting point for future research agendas. Harding explains that, For a position to count as a standpoint…we must insist on an objective location women’s lives - as the place from which feminist research should begin…But it is not the experiences or the speech that provide the grounds for feminist claims; it is rather the subsequently articulated observations of and theory about the rest of nature and social relations - observations and theory that start out from, that look at the world from the perspective of, women’s lives. (Harding, 2001, p. 147 (italics added)) Therefore, a measure of the value of using standpoint theory can be the extent to which the findings then are used to challenge existing power relations and guide future research. Because studying standpoints largely involves interpretation and intention, we felt the need to be most inclusive with this category. Intersectional Feminist Theory Articles in this category are characterized by having an underlying intersectional approach to their study, by presenting intersectional statistics, or by discussing the importance of intersectional studies even if they themselves did not conduct one. Foor et al. conducted an in-depth interview with a “multiminority” student to explore the relationship 292 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education between her socioeconomic and racial/ethnic heritage and her experiences as a female engineering student. The authors argue that educational institutions are a “major force in the construction and transmission of gender, race, and class” (Foor et al., 2007, p. 104). Repeatedly, they emphasize that engineering is not dominated only by men, but by white, western, middle class men. They recognize that their interviewee foregrounds her identity in her racial heritage rather than her gender. Similarly, Trenor et al. explored the relationship between female students’ ethnicity and their perceptions and experiences in engineering to investigate relations between environmental, behavioral and cognitive variables and characteristics such as race and gender (Trenor, Yu, Waight, Zerda, & Sha, 2008). Varma and Hahn, in both of their articles (2007, 2008), also address the lack of studies on women from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds in engineering education, noting a common problematic assumption that, “what applies to white women…also applies to minority women” (2007, p. 361). To fill this gap in knowledge, they conducted interviews with computer science and computer engineering students at seven minority serving institutions. Gallaher and Pearson (2000) considered ethnicity differences as one variable in their survey of women’s perceptions’ of engineering technology programs. These intersectional articles represent an important contribution to engineering education by highlighting the need to study gender in connection with other identity markers and the limitations of universalizing “female students.” Yet further grounding the work in intersectional feminist theory could illuminate and extend the existing and future studies by explaining other aspects of the data, contributing new research questions and interventions, and calling attention to previously unexplored aspects of the relationship between gender—as a hierarchical social construct—and other facets of identity and engineering. Interactional Feminist Theory Articles in this category involved researchers studying, and more specifically observing, the (inter)actions of men and women. Perhaps not surprisingly, given that much work has documented the masculine culture of engineering (education), we observed that the interactional studies could also be considered masculinity studies because they are concerned with exploring how masculinity is (re)produced in the cultures of engineering education. Laeser et al. observed a semester-long design course and studied how gender composition of teams affected the quality of work and the team members’ interactions. They conclude that one implication of their findings, …is that engineering educators may not be able to rely upon the general research that has been completed concerning gender interactions to inform their classroom decision making with respect to teamwork. Instead, research that specifically targets the interactions of male and female engineering students is needed. (Laeser, Moskal, Knecht, & Lasich, 2003) Similarly, Du analyzed constructions of identity in male and female students and states that, “This study sees the construction of masculinity and femininity as a negotiation of gendered meaning through interaction in a social context” (2006, p. 40). And Ingram (2006) explicitly uses interactional theory as one of her frameworks in her analysis of women engineers’ careers across three decades and emphasizes the need to understand gender as a system of relations of power. Tonso recognized that there is a research gap in engineering education that interactional studies can fill, stating that, “the ways that a ‘masculine’ discipline is created or maintained in the everyday, face-to-face interactions and activities of undergraduate 293 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 engineering education are not well understood” (Tonso, 1996a, p. 217). Like Laeser and colleagues, she observed teams in a design course and produced three articles based on her ethnographic observations. She grounds her 2006 article in a “situated learning perspective” that allows her to explore how gendered identities emerge as “hierarchical power relations” or things that are produced, not just property of individuals. She explains that, “trying to understand why some teams work and others don’t requires understanding power relations among men in engineering, as well as those between women and men…Similarly, women’s circumstances could not be explained merely by the fact that they were women…” (Tonso, 2006, p. 34). Rather, their (inter)actions can be understood in the context of the larger campus culture and as inherently tied to power differentials in that culture. And she goes on to conclude that in engineering education “face-to-face interactions are rarely studied in enough detail to provide explanatory power” and recommends there is much to be gained from collaborating with social scientists who are trained ethnographers (Tonso, 2006, p. 35). Importantly, both Ingram and Tonso link individuals’ actions back to structures and forces in the broader cultural context. Masculinity Studies The articles in this category are characterized most notably by explicit discussion of masculinity or by a concern with exploring the process of how masculinities are constructed and maintained. Articles that simply noted the existence of a masculine engineering culture in passing, however, were not included. Godfroy-Genin & Pinault (2006) studied images of masculinity and femininity as part of the European WOMENG project. Sagebiel and Dahmen (2006) studied femininity and masculinity in organizational cultures in Europe. Du (2006) examined the ways in which engineering identity formation is different for female and male students owing to various ways in which engineering is masculine. Similarly, Phipps states of her work, My analysis is also informed by the postmodernist reluctance to view any cultural product as a natural phenomenon, and posits that instead of defining engineering practices and institutions as essentially male, an investigation of the field’s masculine exterior may be more pertinent in terms of the underrepresentation of female practitioners. (2002, p. 409) She explores how the image of engineering is gendered. Stonyer uses a post-structural discursive theory to identify dominant engineering discourses and to explain the ways in which they contribute to the creation of gendered identities in which masculinity and femininity always exist as a binary relationship (2002). Zengin-Arslan examines the differences between engineering subfields’ masculinity and femininity and their relative appeal to female students (2002). Employing Cockburn (1988) and Wajcman’s (1991) work on the interrelationship of masculinity and technology, her article demonstrates the importance of examining constructions of femininity and masculinity to understand why female students have higher representation in some engineering fields than others. Tonso’s discourse analysis also focuses on how masculine facets of engineering education such as weed-out “ordeals,” sexual humor, and violent metaphors are part of how one learns to become an engineer (Tonso, 1996a). The articles in this category demonstrate that masculinity studies can benefit engineering education by highlighting engineering education itself as problematic and in need of change, thus potentially enabling broader cultural shifts that many of the authors advocate. 294 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education DISCUSSION We analyzed 88 articles in three journals over 14 years, but we found no systematic or consistent development of feminist theory within any of the three journals. Of the minority of articles that use any theoretical framework at all, even fewer actively engage with feminist theory in their methods or discussions. Research on other disciplines provides insights that can help us understand the lack of engagement with feminist theory in engineering education. Most disciplines begin (and often end) their relationship with feminist theory by recognizing that women are traditionally ignored within the discipline. Adhering to traditional scientific norms, scholars then attempt to correct this omission (and eliminate prejudice or bias) by bringing women into their studies (Harding, 1991; Riley, 1999). A multitude of criticisms have been levied against this practice, labeled feminist empiricism, which, to a large extent, aligns with liberal feminist approaches. Nancy Riley explains that as a research approach, feminist empiricism treats gender as a binary characteristic of individuals and, thus, assumes that we can learn about gender through the beliefs and behaviors of individuals separately from the context. Our study supports prior work asserting that most women in engineering research is in this vein (Godfrey, 2003; Pawley, 2007; Riley et al., 2009). Riley argues further that gender can only be understood as part of institutions and power (Riley, 1999). According to some scholars, working at a higher theoretical level means recognizing gender as a complex and fluid social construct and an organizational principle of society (Hutchings, 2008; Riley, 1999). They maintain that gender is not a simple male/female binary, but rather constructed categories whose values and meanings are shaped by societal norms, the study of which is facilitated through theory. And yet, as science studies scholar Bartsch reflects, I have come to discover that it is not unusual for people to simplify issues of “feminism in science” to those of “women in science.” It is far less difficult to understand the factors that have limited women’s accomplishments in the sciences than it is to engage in the cultural deconstruction of science that feminism demands. (Bartsch, 2001, p. 30) The ways in which engineering strives to be scientific, objective, and quantitative resist discussion and deconstruction of power and politics that are inherently part of feminist theory and gender studies. Feminist scholars argue that to have any hope of improving the situation, it is better to acknowledge and explore political dimensions of research on gender than to feign objectivity (Riley, 1999). As Ingram states in her study of women engineers, “An understanding of a culture…is incomplete without a corresponding knowledge of the relations of power which provide its foundation. Thus, in describing a culture’s values, norms and styles of discourse, one must also examine how it is a function of larger relations of domination” (Ingram, 2006, p. 291). The disconnect between common myths about engineering’s neutrality and the critical essence of feminist theory could cause tension between those who see issues of power as relevant for gender research (and thus engineering education research), and those who do not. Additionally, in some journals and conferences, research on women in engineering tends to be confined. Nearly one-quarter of the articles we analyzed (22%, 19 of 88) appeared in special issues of IJEE and EJEE. Special issues could be viewed as a promising sign of progress; however, they also evidence a trend of marginalization, rather than integration into mainstream engineering education literature. Such isolation may be problematic if it perpetuates the notion that gender studies are only for women, or that they are not 295 Journal of Engineering Education 100 (April 2011) 2 an important part of the field as a whole. Similarly, research on women and gender is most often confined to special sessions at engineering education conferences as well. We made a conscious decision to focus on engineering education journals with engineering academic staff (faculty members) as their primary audience to draw attention to these issues. It is understandable that much of the engineering education research on women implicitly supports a liberal feminist stance. The liberal work can be an important first step to identifying the problem and creating a sense of urgency around it. There is much complexity and subtlety embedded in the liberal work that we do not mean to minimize. The use of feminist theory can help to both identify specific actions and attitudes that perpetuate inequalities and therefore need to change, as well as link specific details to broad trends in society and social systems of which engineering is just a part. Women in engineering researchers should be aware of the feminist stance they take, even when they do not explicitly name one. Without this awareness, they risk perpetuating the very conditions they seek to change. IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH Based upon our findings, we can put forth several recommendations for the development of feminist theory in engineering education research. First, collaboration with researchers formally trained in women’s studies, STS, anthropology, and related social sciences provides easier access to these literatures, perspectives, and methodologies. In this data set, there is a strong connection between interdisciplinarity and engagement with theory. Articles that engaged feminist theory outside of the liberal tradition (implicitly or explicitly) and/or engaged STS tended to have one or more authors who were trained in fields other than engineering. (This includes individual authors with degrees in both engineering and another field.) Access to relevant theories is one very direct benefit of interdisciplinary collaboration more broadly advocated for engineering education research (Borrego, Beddoes, & Jesiek, 2009). Second, feminist theory can be combined with learning-related theories to deepen understanding. As noted, one of the strengths of feminist theory is that it works alongside and through other theoretical frameworks, and thus, can be used to extend those other frameworks. For example, identity is often used in engineering education to study students’ development of identity as (future) engineers. Interactional, intersectional, and masculinity studies feminist theories could all be used to better understand the processes of identity formation that occur in engineering education. Du’s (2006) and Tonso’s (Tonso, 1996b, 2006) articles are examples of how feminist theory can work through identity theory. Similarly, teams research is often applied in engineering education to understand which combinations of personalities, work styles, and roles (including training students in these categorizations) impact learning and team productivity. Feminist theories such as masculinity studies and interactional perspectives can help explain how and why team roles aligned to gender lines are perpetuated in engineering student teams. Ultimately, we advocate for variety among the use of feminist thought in engineering education. However, we note an abundance of articles in the liberal feminist tradition and argue that the research area is sufficiently developed to warrant more sophisticated engagement with other branches. There is much rhetoric and some practical efforts around marketing engineering as an exciting career that helps people (e.g., Committee on Public Understanding of Engineering Messages, 2008). These efforts may be seen as an initial step to acknowledging and deconstructing the masculine image of engineering and the gender 296 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education roles it perpetuates. Jawitz and Case argue that, “Instead of the traditional activities which try to persuade women that they should try engineering and then help them fit into the culture … we need to create a new engineering culture” (Jawitz & Case, 2002, p. 390). In other words, the time has come to thoroughly examine and deconstruct how cultures of engineering education both reinforce masculine biases and (re)produce gendered identities. As we have tried to show in this article, the research frontiers opened by feminist theory can help us understand many aspects of engineering education and suggest new approaches to increasing diversity. 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Paper presented at the Frontiers in Education (FIE), Indianapolis, IN. Wankat, P. C. (1999). An analysis of the articles in the Journal of Engineering Education. Journal of Engineering Education, 88(1), 37–42. West, C., & Fenstermaker, S. (1995). Doing difference. Gender and Society, 9(1), 8–37. Whitin, K., & Sheppard, S. (2004). Taking stock: An analysis of the publishing record as represented by the Journal of Engineering Education. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(1), 5–12. Zalewski, M. (2000). Feminism after postmodernism. New York, NY: Routledge. Zengin-Arslan, B. (2002). Women in engineering education in Turkey: Understanding the gendered distribution. International Journal of Engineering Education, 18(4), 400–408. AUTHORS Kacey Beddoes is a Ph.D. student in Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Tech, Lane Hall (0247), Blacksburg, VA, 24061; kbeddoes@vt.edu. Maura Borrego is an associate professor, Engineering Education, Virginia Tech, McBryde Hall (0218), Blacksburg, VA, 24061; mborrego@vt.edu. 302 100 (April 2011) 2 Journal of Engineering Education Appendix: Categorization of dataset with examples 303 The author has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are l