Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2011, Page 98

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Þuríður Ósk Sigurjónsdóttir og Sif Einarsdóttir
social context offered by a predominantly
patriarchial social structure (Anderson,
1997; Gunter, 1995; Lindsey, 1994). Nancy
Betz (2005) has emphasized that individu-
als face barriers related to social structure,
socialization and psychological factors
that hinder them in making untraditional
career choices for their gender. However,
supportive factors may also facilitate these
choices. A recent study done in the US
shows that the main barriers in the choices
of engineering for women are: lack of in-
formation about the occupation, feeling of
alienation in advanced math courses, self-
efficacy beliefs, lack of female role models,
and career counseling. The factors that
facilitated their non-traditional choices,
in contrast, were academic achievement
and interest in math and sciences, good
teachers, encouragement, role models, and
good job opportunities (Wentling & Cama-
cho, 2008).
It is not sufficient to focus on individual
choices and perceive science and technol-
ogy as value free or just as a set of skills
and attitudes women need to master. Hen-
wood (2000) has suggested that it is impor-
tant to study the culture that is dominant
within these fields and how they relate to
the greater power structure in the patri-
archy (Greenfield, et al., 2002). The major
purpose of the present study was therefore
to test whether women enrolled in male-
dominated majors in the School of Engi-
neering and Natural Sciences had encoun-
tered barriers and supportive factors while
making educational choices and how they
had experienced the atmosphere and in-
structional practices of the male-dominat-
ed departments. A focal point related to
the fact that these women had chosen to
enter fields of study that are traditionally
male dominated.
Method
After soliciting students via email a web-
based questionnaire was administered
to 185 enrolled students (139 men and 46
women) in the departments of math, phys-
ics, engineering and computer science. The
questionnaire was split into four parts: 1.
Factors that influenced their educational
choices, attitudes and math experiences, 2.
Experiences of the dominant culture in the
discipline‘s instructional practices, 3. Atti-
tudes towards gender issues, 4. Students’
expectations after graduation.
Results and discussion
The results showed that women who
have chosen these non-traditional majors
are high academic achievers and have
strong self-efficacy beliefs in mathemat-
ics. Despite this they need more encour-
agement and various types of support to
make such choices compared to their male
counterparts. More women than men also
replied that having a role model was very
important. The women were more inter-
ested in maths than the men and they also
considered themselves better prepared to
study science at the university. They were
in general satisfied with the instructional
practices, and men and women had simi-
lar expectations concerning jobs and sala-
ries after graduation. However, there were