Diversity and inclusion in engineering education: Looking through the gender question

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field in general, and Engineering, suffer from a lack of diversity. Yet there is growing evidence that more diverse organizations are more successful and effective. There is also a global shortage of STEM and engineering skills that can be tackled by addressing the lack of diversity in the field. One obvious way to view this problem is by looking at gender. Women make up 50% of the population, but in Engineering the number of female students and professionals is clearly less than this, often around 10–25% in many parts of the world. This underrepresentation of women leads us to think about other groups that are underrepresented in Engineering; these include Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and those from socially deprived backgrounds. This paper examines a number of approaches to support diversity and inclusion to encourage a greater uptake of engineering by underrepresented groups and to retain people in the sector.