Women in industrial engineering: Stereotypes, persistence, and perspectives

Abstract

BACKGROUND Industrial engineering (IE) draws in and graduates women at among the highest rates compared with most engineering majors in the U.S. Popular stereotypes suggest this is because IE is "easier" than other engineering majors. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) This research interrogates prevailing assumptions about industrial engineering to explore why undergraduate women are drawn to industrial engineering over other engineering majors. DESIGN/METHODS Our mixed method approach used three sources of data. Quantitative analyses of a large, longitudinal dataset allowed us to draw empirical generalizations about academic performance, attraction to, and persistence within industrial engineering among men and women. We triangulated this with qualitative focus group data among women majoring in IE. Finally, we used content analysis of university IE Web sites to understand context and discourse. RESULTS In our dataset, industrial engineering is the only engineering major that gains women and men from the third semester through six-year graduation and among all race-gender combinations (except Black men). Women in focus groups reveal that they are drawn to IE for a myriad of social factors including: warmth, flexibility, a sense it is more feminine, and career opportunities, among others. Content analysis of Web sites reveals that IE emphasizes collegiality and leadership opportunities as intrinsic to the discipline. CONCLUSIONS Using a social capital framework, we showed that the context of IE, including prevailing norms and possibilities for networking, promotes ideologies of success that lead to greater attraction to and persistence within the major. © 2012 ASEE.