How women engineering students navigate barriers in universities

Women everywhere are underrepresented in science and engineering in higher education. In South Korea, 2022 figures from the Korea Foundation for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) show that women make up only 21.17% of total students majoring in science and engineering in higher education. This is an increase on the 2011 figure of 16.9%, but still shows a need for more progress.

In the summer of 2023, we engaged in a one-week exploratory research study in Seoul, South Korea, to explore gender equality in engineering, with a focus on both institutional level efforts and individual experiences of engineering stakeholders.

During this time, we met with stakeholders from two major organisations for projects and programmes related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM: WISET and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity (KOFAC).

WISET is a non-profit foundation launched in 2011 that specifically supports women in STEM. KOFAC, a government-affiliated institute established in 1967, makes programmes and policies to promote science and technology culture and to cultivate human talent with the Ministry of Science and ICT (information and communications technology) and the Ministry of Education. Additionally, we engaged in semi-structured interviews with five engineering women students and two engineering faculty at a private university.

The national picture

The lessons learned from WISET and KOFAC suggest that these organisations have advanced gender equity at the national level. These agencies, which work closely with the South Korean government, shared research reports and highlights that show how the educational system is making steady gains in advancing gender equity.

From WISET we learned that, at the systematic level, the organisation has contributed greatly to increasing the recruitment and retainment rates of women employees in the public sector.

Especially for women whose careers have been interrupted due to childbirth and childcare, WISET provides research funding, education and mentoring, which resulted in 79.2% of 1,000 women returning to their careers from 2013 to 2021. In addition, its Engineering Research Team Project has supported more than 6,379 women students (from 2013 to 2021): women graduate and undergraduate students gain experience leading a research project and collaborate with middle and high school students.

KOFAC has promoted a science and engineering culture to all students, using the STEAM model, which is an extended version of STEM with an emphasis on humanities and arts education. Although there is not an explicit focus on women in KOFAC’s work, the organisation collects and uses data on female and male students’ scientific interests internally for promoting gender equity and providing equitable opportunities for both groups to engage in STEAM.

The realities for women students in engineering

However, the interviews with faculty and students suggested that the day-to-day reality for Korean women might not be as positive in the university context.

A student in electricity and electronic engineering shared that no one in the university had explained anything about her major, and other related things, to her following her first-year presentation. In fact, she had to learn al-eum al-eum (by word of mouth) through sunbae (an upper-level student) and dong-gi (a peer in her cohort).

In new materials engineering, which has the highest proportion of women in the department, a student mentioned that she did not know most of the women in her cohort of 120 students and did not have opportunities to interact with them in class due to the lack of team-based projects.

Similarly, another student alumna in industrial engineering, who did not have access to extensive social capital, had to attempt to expand her network by taking advantage of tutoring: mentors share lecture notes, even collections of previous test questions and answer keys jokbo, and project materials with their mentees.

With limited communication from the department or discipline and scarce opportunities for interaction, women students had to seek alternative ways to access information, obtain support and interact with peers. These institutional realities make students feel apathetic about their future employment prospects in engineering.

Women engineering faculty

From the faculty side, the authors learned how the climate of their engineering department has changed in positive ways, but that barriers remain.

A woman from the faculty reflected on the atmosphere in the department since the early 2000s. She pointed out that, although it is still male dominated and professor driven, students are interested in more horizontal and autonomous cultures than before. However, students often had to initiate changes to access this culture on a personal level, implying that these changes may not be transferable beyond those individuals.

Furthermore, another member of the faculty said she wanted to have lectures on how to teach and relate to the younger generation so that she can better interact with students in their 20s. She added that the hardest aspect of being a professor in South Korea is spending 40% of her time doing administrative work.

In addition to these individual perspectives, the faculty interviews demonstrated the impact of competitiveness in engineering, especially in Korean society. One faculty member explained that the emphasis on competitiveness negatively affects the ability to recognise and collectively respond to systemic issues, such as gender equity.

These insights from the faculty in the data indicate that, despite progress at the organisational and national level, faculty are in need of more systematic support and resources to foster meaningful instruction and interactions with their students in higher education contexts.

Misalignment

We concluded that there is generally trust in governmental and research institutions, especially when working with research agencies.

However, the reflections from students and faculty suggest that more work needs to be done to ensure that women feel optimistic about engineering pathways and professions. The mixed perceptions of faculty and students show how the perception of progress at the national level diverges from the individual perceptions of Korean women who are faculty and students in engineering.

Broadly speaking, such insights remind higher education leaders that government insight and individual experiences are often misaligned.

Accordingly, leaders should develop support systems for women students and faculty in engineering that address the intersections of these individual realities and gaps in engineering in higher education. These systems should serve as access points for women in the field so that their unique needs, the result of the barriers to gender equity and social capital that exist, can be met.

Dr Meseret F Hailu is assistant professor of higher and postsecondary education, MLFTC Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, and a 2023 NAEd/Spencer postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University. Minji Kim is one of her doctoral students.