The main aim of the Working Group on Gender and Diversity is to develop engineering education and engineering professions in a gender inclusive way, reflected by participation rates of women, retention rates of women, gender awareness among academic staff and satisfaction of women engineers in the workplace. Our vision is to create and foster environments where every individual is respected and no one feels marginalized.
The Group focuses its work in two areas: 1) Identifying best practices to attract and retain women and other underrepresented students in higher engineering education, and 2) promoting scholarly research on gender and diversity in engineering education.
We regularly hold special sessions on gender and diversity at the SEFI Annual Conference and strive to continuously integrate questions of gender and diversity into all facets of the conference and council meetings. The Group aims to work synergistically with other Working Groups in order to advance critical understandings of inclusivity engineering education.
Specific Goals for Coming Years
- Contribute to mainstreaming topics of gender and diversity into all working groups and identify relevant cross-sectional topics – For example, with the working group on Engineering Education Research, as well as with the editorial board of the European Journal of Engineering Education.
- Broadening and deepening the approaches and concepts used in engineering education research on gender and efforts to promote inclusive programs.
- Contribute to a European network of SEFI members who systematically exchange information on the topics above.
- Collaborate with other European networks and public relations to promote inclusivity.
Recent and Upcoming Initiatives
- We are in the process of planning a workshop on methodologies for gender research at the SEFI 2019 Annual Conference. Please check back for details when the program is finalized.
Members’ Websites and Twitter Feeds Related to Gender and Diversity
- Kacey Beddoes – sociologyofengineering.org
- Tinne De Laet – Twitter @TinneDeLaet
INTERIM WORKING GROUP CHAIR