A Literature Review On The Underrepresentation Of Women In Undergraduate Engineering: Ability, Self Efficacy, And The "Chilly Climate"

Introduction The low retention of undergraduate women in engineering (WIE), combined with their low application rates, results in a continuing under-representation of women in the industrial and academic engineering culture. From 1987 to 1997, the undergraduate enrollment of women in engineering increased from 15% to 19%, in a relatively consistent but gradual manner1. In science and engineering combined, women now earn 47% of bachelor degrees, though they are overrepresented in some fields such as psychology and underrepresented in others such as computer science and most fields of engineering. Among minorities, women earn more than half of science and engineering degrees. Farrell2 notes that the proportion of women engineers of the past 20 years has only grown 5%, despite a number of mentorship programs, scholarships, and curricular improvements throughout the country. One engineering dean describes it as "a national crisis" (p. A31).

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