Winning Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology in Higher Education in Scotland

Abstract

In July 1995 the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) announced an initiative aimed at redressing the underrepresentation of women in science, engineering, and technology in higher education in Scotland. The first step in the initiative was to support a research and development project that would investigate good practice in women's access to, participation in, and progression through courses and careers in science, engineering, and technology (SET) in higher education. The initiative had its roots in the growing awareness of the problem of the underrepresentation of women in these disciplines that had been communicated through such pressure groups as "Women Scientists and Engineers in Scotland" (WSES) and "Women into Science and Engineering" (WISE) among others. The recruitment problem in SET is not confined to women; it is much more general and a cause of concern across the United Kingdom, but it is clear that women experience particular obstacles and barriers in their pursuit of studies and employment in SET. In this paper, arising out of the first stage of a research project entitled "Winning Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology in Higher Education in Scotland," and funded by SHEFC,1 we consider the extent of the problem of women's underrepresentation in SET in higher education and speculatively ask whether there are epistemological and pedagogical questions that need to be addressed in order to ameliorate women's position. We set the scene by considering the nature of the problem of women's underrepresentation in SET in higher education at three stages: access to higher education, participation in courses in higher education, and progression through careers in higher education for women staff.