年間 6 号発行
ISSN 印刷: 1072-8325
ISSN オンライン: 1940-431X
Indexed in
GENDER EQUITY IN ENGINEERING IN DENMARK: STILL A LONG WAY TO GO
要約
Because of a dramatic decrease in enrollment in engineering education in Denmark from 1990 to 1995, a renewed interest in young women as potential engineering students has surfaced in Danish society at large, and more specifically in engineering educational institutions. At the same time, industry and other stakeholders in society are raising critical voices against the traditional engineering curricula for being too technically narrow, and for failing to embrace the development of personal qualifications and interpersonal skills. Also, engineering students are critical in their assessment of the pedagogical aspects of engineering education.
The question is whether these different criticisms can be used as impetuses for change toward a broader curriculum within engineering, applying nontraditional pedagogical approaches, and including a range of nontechnical issues. Thereby, the wishes of industry for development of nontechnical skills and qualifications can be fulfilled, and more women will be attracted to engineering education and jobs.
In this article, I give statistics on women in engineering education, a few examples of the critical voices from industry and students, and take a critical look at recent attempts to increase the proportion of female students in engineering.