1 Challenging Gender Stereotypes in Engineering Education

Abstract—Previous research on gender and engineering education has often tended to work with limited understanding of technology and gender. For instance, the gender equality approach relies on liberal discourses and incorporates a deficit model of women. In the early nineties a paradigm shift took place and post-modern approaches received more attention. But empiricism has often become trapped in comparing women with men. As a result, most studies continue to be reductive and contribute to confirming gender stereotypes. Recently, there have been some attempts to find new ways to transgress such general and dichotomous characterizations of gender. This paper also concerns the methodology of feminist research on gender and technology. The empirical material is based on a data collection of 859 first-semester students studying engineering in higher education in Germany. In this paper their attitudes and interests concerning computers and technology will be analyzed. Technical attitudes and interests; gender stereotypes; methodology of feminist researc