Abstract:

Analysis of factors that shapes women’s interest, persistence and retention in STEM education and profession remain limited to the gendered identity. Anecdotal evidence has long shown that characteristics such as race, class, age, language, religion, or disability can exacerbate the experience of exclusion and otherness for already marginalised individuals. That coupled with sustained modest access and retention rates necessitates the need to rethink women in STEM underrepresentation. This presentation thus presents findings of qualitative research carried out at the University of Leeds to explore sense of belonging for women in engineering through an intersectionality lens. The findings suggest new understanding to the factors that impact the formation of women in engineering identity and sense of belonging experience. It highlights the importance of shifting emphasis to contextualising the lived experience of women, shaped by their intersecting identities, in addressing connections on sense of belonging and formation of engineering identity. That is because identifying with minoritised subjectifies can have added its added impact on individuals who are already underrepresented because of their gender. The presentation further draws emphasis on the need to refrain from homogenising these experiences; because while individuals may seem to have similar intersectional identities that does not necessarily imply shared lived experience. It argues that essentialising the lived experience of women in engineering merely on their gender and disregarding their membership of other identities can pose an unintentional risk of feeding into the inequity gap.

Keywords:

STEM, gendered identity, sense of belonging, intersectionality, STEM identity.