Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Oct. 10, 2007). PDF text: x, 194 p. : col. ill. UMI publication number: AAT 3258405. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Rhode Island, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-113).

Submitted by Lucienne Costa (lucienneferreira@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-05-04T21:11:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RAQUEL DA SILVA GUEDES – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGH) 2016.pdf: 866736 bytes, checksum: cb09b07cba9a2474af4bed591a83389e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-04T21:11:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RAQUEL DA SILVA GUEDES – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGH) 2016.pdf: 866736 bytes, checksum: cb09b07cba9a2474af4bed591a83389e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-06 / A história feminina na Ciência e Tecnologia foi limitada devido a fatores circunstanciais que delimitaram o espaço como predominantemente masculino, de maneira que até hoje a presença das mulheres nessa área de conhecimento ainda é pequena. Durante séculos a luta feminina por direitos civis e educacionais foi acirrada, sendo vários os eventos históricos em que mulheres foram em busca de oportunidades de formação profissional e à disputa dos lugares de trabalho no mercado, seja porque tinham o ideal de igualdade de gênero, seja porque não aceitaram o discurso de que a capacidade da mulher seria inferior a do homem. O presente trabalho de pesquisa tem como problema a ser analisado a presença feminina em cursos de graduação de engenharias. O objetivo geral é analisar as construções discursivas que limitaram os espaços de vivência das mulheres, causando diferenças sociais e de gênero, e especificamente, investigar a inserção feminina na Ciência e Tecnologia, e as principais dificuldades enfrentadas por elas. Para isso foram utilizados dados estatísticos veiculados pela Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) e do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq); e, relatos de ex-alunas, ex-professoras, professoras, ex-professores e professores da Escola Politécnica da Paraíba, da Universidade Federal da Paraíba e da Universidade Federal de Campina Grande. Foram também utilizados artigos, dissertações de Mestrado, teses de Doutorado, e publicações sobre o assunto gênero, questões de gênero nas ciências e mulheres na ciência e tecnologia encontradas em sites de internet. Os relatos foram analisados por meio da metodologia em História Oral, e todas as informações e literatura analisadas a partir da referência teórica do pensador Michel Foucault. Como resultados da pesquisa, constatamos a permanência de práticas culturais que desencorajam as mulheres de enveredar pela ciência e tecnologia; e, a permanência de discurso que naturaliza o campo da ciência e tecnologia como eminentemente masculino. De modo que, há uma contribuição para a naturalização dos papéis sociais, e para o distanciamento de mulheres dessa. São muitos os desafios à inserção do feminino nessa área, por isso verificamos que as mulheres têm usado táticas de burlas para conseguir superar limitações e dar contribuições para o progresso da ciência e tecnologia. / Women's history in Science and Technology was limited due to circumstantial factors that delimit the space as predominantly male, so that today the presence of women in this area of knowledge is still small. For centuries women's struggle for civil and educational rights was fierce, with several historical events in which women were seeking training opportunities and the struggle of the working places in the market, either because they had the ideal of gender equality is because it did not accept the speech of the woman's capacity would be less than man. This research work has the problem to be analyzed the presence of women in engineering degree courses. The general objective is to analyze the discursive constructions that limited the living spaces of women, causing social and gender differences, and specifically investigate women's insertion in Science and Technology, and the main difficulties faced by them. For this we used statistical data transmitted by the Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination (CAPES) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); and former students to reports, former teachers, teachers, former teachers and teachers of Paraíba Polytechnic School of the Federal University of Paraíba and the Federal University of Campina Grande. Were also used articles, Master's dissertations, PhD theses, and publications on the subject gender, gender issues in science and women in science and technology found in internet sites. The reports were analyzed using the methodology of Oral History, and all information and literature analyzed from the theoretical reference thinker Michel Foucault. As a result of the research, we found the permanence of cultural practices that discourage women from embarking on science and technology; and the speech of permanence that naturalizes the field of science and technology as eminently masculine. So, there is a contribution to the naturalization of social roles, and the distancing of women of that. There are many challenges to women's inclusion in this area, so we see that women have used tactics of scams to be able to overcome limitations and make contributions to the progress of science and technology.

This work is a feminist study that aims to address a gap in knowledge about the working lives and learning of those employed in electronic, globalising industries, such as localisation. While much is known generally about the under-representation of women in SET (Science, Engineering and Technology), there has been less detailed study that explores the gendering of working lives in electronic knowledge industries which are a crucial part of the technological globalising process. Taking the localisation industry as a case, the present work addresses this lack. Localisation involves making an electronic product or website linguistically and culturally appropriate for people to use in another country/region and language. Workers in the industry adapt printed and electronic texts (and products) for distribution in overseas markets. The study is based on interviews with 10 workers and company owners from the UK, continental Europe, Ireland and South America. A critical feminist approach supports the analysis of interview data using CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis), and participant observation at a conference to reveal power relations which are seemingly hidden in the virtual sphere. Remote forms of working, mediated through the use of ICTs (Information and Communications Technologies) predominate in the industry. The findings are presented in three areas of analysis. Firstly, in relation to workers’ identities the study revealed that technology was a discursive resource used symbolically. While technology represented quality, domestication was used antithetically to indicate its lack. In the analysis this constituted a technologisation of identities. Secondly, workers’ learning trajectories revealed tensions in between knowledge work and accreditation. In relation to technology per se, image creation was central to localisation and the separation of the image from work practices concealed workers’ contributions. In this way the emotional labour invested in the production of the localised image was hidden. Thirdly, the study revealed ways in which global structures interacted with industry boundaries and intersected gendered cultures with implications for professional learning.

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop the Response Inventory to Stereotype-threatening Environments Questionnaire (RISE-Q), a multidimensional measure of the intentional cognitive and behavioral strategies women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations engage to contend with systemic stereotype threat. Hundreds of studies demonstrate negative effects of stereotype threat relevant to women’s workplace experiences (for a review see Walton, Murphy, & Ryan, 2015). However, most focus on acute processes and effects, those that are immediate and temporary in response to a single cue. Less is known about how individuals respond to the experience of chronic stereotype threat (Block, Koch, Liberman, Merriweather, & Roberson, 2011). This has implications for organizations because it is unlikely stereotype threat is only experienced as an acute state in the workplace (Kalokerinos, von Hippel, & Zacher, 2014), and it is the accumulation of stereotype threat-activating cues that may lead to permanent outcomes (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). In order to address this gap and contribute to research on women’s career experiences in STEM (Makarem & Wang, 2019), this dissertation develops the RISE-Q, an inventory of three separate, but related, response pattern scales based on three response patterns previously identified by Block, Cruz, Bairley, Harel-Marian, & Roberson (2019): (1) Fending Off the Threat, (2) Confronting the Threat, and (3) Sustaining Self in the Presence of Threat. Seventy-two items across three response pattern scales were developed and tested in a sample of 726 women who currently work in STEM occupations. Results from Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFAs) of data collected from a Qualtrics Panel sample (n = 378) demonstrated each response pattern scale consisted of four factors reflecting four specific strategies. A series of Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) using data collected from online “women in STEM” networks (n = 348) provided evidence for moderate model fit for the Fending Off response pattern scale, and good model fit for the Confronting Threat and Sustaining Self scales. Assessments of internal consistency reliabilities for all three response pattern scales and associated subscales demonstrated strong internal consistency. Further analyses provided strong evidence of convergent validity and criterion-related validity for all three scales. Initial results for the RISE-Q are promising. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

No description available.

No description available.

The objective of this project is to examine the differences between Moroccan and American students with regards to the cultural influences that led them to pursue an engineering degree. Annually since 2015, a partnership between a university in Morocco and MSU allows senior engineering Moroccan students to study at MSU to obtain their graduate degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering. The roughly equal gender representation in most Moroccan cohorts prompted our research question: “How do students from Morocco and the United States describe the cultural reasons that factored into their choice to pursue an engineering degree?” This exploratory qualitative study is guided by the combined frameworks of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension (HCD) and Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT). The influence of expectancy, family/social structure, and value are evaluated using EVT and cultural factors are evaluated through HCD. We conducted two phases of semi-structured interviews with senior and graduate Moroccan and American students. This study resulted in the modification of the EVT model to include the three constructs of Collectivism, Religion, and Power Distance Index. It also revealed how EVT’s task values manifest differently across cultures. Results indicate that cultural differences manifest primarily through the “Collectivist” mentality among Moroccans, explaining the gender participation difference between Moroccan and American engineering students.

Despite concerted efforts among the engineering community – educators, employers, research funders, policymakers, and engineering professionals – to increase women’s enrollment and persistence in undergraduate engineering programs, women’s underrepresentation in the engineering profession continues to persist into the twenty-first century. As a result of this trend, especially given women’s proportion of the overall U.S. population and college enrollment, the need for further investigation of the issue has been well established. While numerous studies have examined this issue, many have done so quantitatively. Therefore, it has been recommended by the engineering community that an expanded use of qualitative methods be considered to address this research gap and add to the scope and rigor in understanding factors that influence women’s choice and persistence in engineering (Koro‐Ljungberg & Douglas, 2008). The aim of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of women in an undergraduate engineering program at a large, comprehensive research university located in the Northeast region of the U.S. to gain a better understanding of factors that help shape and influence women’s choice and persistence in engineering. Lent, Brown, and Hackett’s (1994) social cognitive career theory (SCCT) provided a guiding framework to illustrate how the participants’ educational choice behaviors were influenced by a number of variables related to their personal characteristics, experiences, and environment. To strengthen the study’s credibility member checking procedures were used to authenticate the findings and the interpretation of the participants’ experiences and triangulation methods were used to validate the findings and illustrate convergence in evidence across female student and female faculty participants’ experiences. The findings revealed several recurrent themes across the participants’ experiences that aligned with the SCCT framework, offering a unique perspective of how choice and persistence in engineering took shape for the participants in the study. Themes related to women’s choice of engineering were STEM or engineering exposure, self-efficacy in math and science, engineering outcome expectations, engineering agency beliefs, and pre-college environmental support. Themes related to women’s persistence in engineering were engineering barriers for women, women’s engineering barrier-coping strategies, and engineering environmental support. / Educational Administration

This study was designed to investigate a phenomenon, persistence of undergraduate women in their engineering majors, from a qualitative paradigm. Guided by the tenets of feminist and inclusive research, the assumption was made that all women, whether they persist or not in their engineering majors, have strengths and insights into their own personal experiences. The experiences of African American women, Asian women, Caucasian women, Hispanic women, women from rural geographical areas, and non-persisters were investigated. A developmental life-span and social learning perspective called for an examination of factors relevant to engineering major choice and persistence from early childhood to the present time, including family background and individual factors, environmental factors and experiences with the engineering culture, and social factors relevant to major choice and persistence. Twenty-eight (28) persisters and 8 non-persisters participated in the study which was conducted at a large land-grant university in the southeastern United States in the fall of 1996. The following questions guided the study: (1) What experiences have been influential in undergraduate women's selection of engineering as a major? (2) How does the culture and climate of engineering education influence the experiences of these undergraduate women? (3) How do individual, educational, social, and environmental characteristics and strategies contribute to undergraduate women's persistence in their engineering majors? (4) Which of these characteristics and strategies differentiate between female persisters and non-persisters, in other words, what are the differences between academically successful undergraduate women who leave their engineering majors and those who remain in them? (5) How do characteristics and strategies of persistence and non-persistence compare for special populations? Qualitative interviewing through in-depth individual interviews and small group interviews was the method of data collection; participants were recruited through a purposive sampling frame as well as through volunteering and snowball sampling. Criteria for inclusion in the persisters group were junior or senior level academic standing and academic eligibility. Grounded theory methodology was the primary tool of analysis. The findings clearly demonstrated two major groups of persisters and non-persisters. One group of persisters made early decisions and stayed the course through academic preparation and hands-on experiences. A second group of persisters made later decisions based on encouragement and the structure of opportunity for women and minorities in engineering. One group of non-persisters left engineering for majors that provided a better person-environment fit. A second group of non-persisters, many of whom were pressured to major in engineering although they lacked hands-on experience, left their engineering majors for a variety of different reasons including intimidation, isolation, lowered confidence in their abilities, and personal problems. Perceptions and experiences with the institution itself and perceptions of the culture of engineering education varied depending on the career decision making process, group membership, and individual factors such as personality. Therefore, persistence and non-persistence were found to be a function of a complex interaction of individual, environmental, and social factors. / Ph. D.