“I Found My Home There”: Women’s Engineering Identity in STEM Student Organizations

Abstract

Motivated by ongoing gender disparities in engineering, the authors qualitatively examine how collegiate STEM student organizations serve as affirming spaces for women’s engineering identity development, countering their exclusionary classroom environments. Drawing from interviews and written data with 24 undergraduate women, findings demonstrate how student organizations promote engineering identity through women recognizing themselves as engineers, viewing peers as possibility models, and being recognized by others as engineers. We conclude with practical implications for fostering inclusive engineering environments.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2022 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting and as a workshop with the American Association for the Advancement of Science—Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative (AAAS-IUSE).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ We use “dominant” instead of more common nomenclature about representation to reflect the inequitable power structures that govern opportunities based on social identities.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the data used in this study was provided by an ACPA Foundation Grant. The views in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the funding agency.