MATHEMATICAL LITERACY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: ATTRACTING WOMEN TO ENGINEERING PROFESSIONS BY USING ICT

The engineering profession still is a male domain. Many attempts to change this isolation and to call women into the profession failed. Neither the study conditions nor the social recognition were experienced as adequate for women. The focus on the development of deeper understanding, explicit connectedness, comprehension and social concern are considered as major characteristics that strongly support women's participation and interest in mathematics and the engineering profession. A project at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) in collaboration with five other Technological Universities, "Multimedia-aided interactive mathematics education for engineers, " aims at trying to integrate strongly learner-oriented components into the university studies by using modern ICT. It should serve to discuss the issue of "women and technology". MATHEMATICAL LITERACY FOR HIGHER EDUCATION The growing influence of mathematics and technology on society does increasingly require aims of mathematics education for users of mathematics to be re-thought. What is needed today are more flexible, more analytical and abstract problem solvers. In particular, the present mathematical teaching approaches for engineers need to b