Abstract:

Since the beginning of Electrical Engineering in the 19th century, this scientific field consisted of more male scientists than female scientists. For many years the Academy has suffered from extremely low percentage of female students in Electrical Engineering studies. Unfortunately, this does not seem to change despite of many attempts to intervene by Schools, Universities and Governments, and two decades into the 21st century, Electrical Engineering is still considered an academic field attracting more male than female students. This is especially surprising when observing rapid changes in Curriculum and the academic resemblance to Computer Science and Software Engineering, more balanced academic fields in terms of gender. In this work the author examines the variance between different undergraduate engineering programs and focuses on Electrical Engineering. Changes, if any, in the past 10 years are examined and trends are analysed. The data indicates that the differentiation begins at a much earlier stage than academic studies. Research conducted at high schools throughout the country, revealed that the percentage of male students that studied the highest levels of mathematics is 33% higher than that of female students. In high school physics the results are even more extreme as the percent of male students that studied the highest levels of physics is more than twice the percent of female students. Research revealed that financial support from the Government, i.e., scholarships for female students who chose to study science, increased the number of female undergraduate students in the Electrical Engineering program, and that in the periphery the percent of female students is smaller than in large cities. This work attempts to use these last findings and suggest different measures to increase the number of female Engineers.

Keywords:

Gender and Diversity, Engineering Education Research, Recruitment and Retention.