Being Female and an Engineering Student in Qatar: Successes, Challenges, and Recommendations

Hillman, Sara; Salama, Ghada; Eibenschutz, Emilio Ocampo; Awadh, Saly Mohamed Ali; Said, Lara

doi:10.18260/1-2--27651

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(18 reference statements)

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“…Statistics about TAMUQ's student body reflect these sponsored students' stories. Most women are enrolled in electrical or chemical engineering, with the lowest numbers studying mechanical engineering (Hillman et al, 2017). In interviews with faculty and administrators about this discrepancy, their explanations were largely placed on spaces outside of TAMUQ-sexism within the national industry, family pressure, and cultural norms.…”

Section: Regulating the Feminization Of Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who will man the rigs when we go?” transnational demographic fever dreams between Qatar and Texas

Al-Saleh

2022

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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The educational project of producing engineers in Qatar is uniquely embedded in global capitalism, particularly as a field closely tied to the development of the oil and gas industry, the military and logistics spaces across the Gulf. Over the past two decades, U.S. universities based in the region have become significant spaces where new generations of managerial engineering labor are educated. Drawing on 18 months of institutional ethnographic research, I examine Texas A&M University at Qatar’s (TAMUQ) role in managing the gender demographics of Qatari engineering labor and the experiences of students navigating these institutional mechanisms. The increasing number of women studying at Texas A&M’s engineering branch campus are publicly celebrated by the university as the embodiment of progress in Qatar. At the same time, TAMUQ has worked to mitigate the feminization of engineering through outreach activities that present engineering as a masculine patriotic endeavor. To unpack these contradictory tendencies, I build on the feminist concept of “demographic fever dreams.” Through an examination of contradictory population-based anxieties about Qatari engineering students, I argue that a U.S. land-grant university is a participant and driver of fantasies and fears regarding the future of racialized and gendered labor hierarchies and fossil-fueled capitalism in the Gulf. In doing so, this article offers a grounded feminist intervention to examine the connections between transnational education, U.S. hegemony, and the fossil fuel industry.

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Section: Regulating the Feminization Of Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who will man the rigs when we go?” transnational demographic fever dreams between Qatar and Texas

Al-Saleh

2022

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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“…The authors recommend the removal of antiquated restrictions on women and the continued development of international collaborations at all educational levels. Recent research (Hillman and Salama, 2018) conducted in Qatar looked into the challenges of supporting female students to work in engineering-related careers in the Arab Gulf.…”

Section: Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Education And Career Choicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women in STEM/SET: gender gap research review of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – a meta-analysis

Patterson

Varadarajan²,

Salim

2020

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct a meta-analysis of existing research on gender discrimination/gender gap and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the UAE, specifically, and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in general because of very limited number of articles published on the subject. It will give future researchers insights into the topics, methodologies and findings of such research from 1999–2019. Design/methodology/approach This study conducts a meta-analysis of 72 articles using the Wildcard operator search method and the Boolean operator to perform an integrative literature search related to gender discrimination studies done in relationship to or specific to the UAE. Findings In total, 88 papers related to the UAE and gender gap and women were identified. The articles were narrowed down to the ones published in high-ranked or Scopus journals (72). The findings suggest a decreasing trend in gender discrimination, but the issue still persists, requiring efforts from policy-makers, society and government to ensure gender parity is achieved. Academic research on women in STEM/SET workplace, specific to the UAE and the region, continue to slowly advance, with very few articles published in the same. Practical implications The study provides insights into gender gap research done in the past ten years specific to the UAE national women and gender gap in general and their career choices and prospects in the STEM/SET domain. Social implications There is a need to focus research on Emirati women in STEM careers to develop more insights into gender gap perceptions of Emirati women and identify challenges and methods to close the gender gap in STEM careers. Originality/value This paper brings a holistic perspective to the meta-analysis of research on the gender gap and women in the UAE’s STEM domain.

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“…[4] While these changes in the behavior and perception of Qatari females indicates that the broader society values their pursuit of education and employment, problems still exist. A recent study of female engineering students in Qatar found that they experienced gender bias from both professors and male peers, as well as companies in the engineering industry [5]. The transition from university to an engineering career has been shown to be a significant factor in the success of a female graduate in the Middle East region [6], so further information about the experiences of Qatari females in the engineering field is needed.…”

Section: Socio-cultural Factors Influencing Education and Employment Of Female Engineers In Qatarmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, efforts from the Qatari government, educational system and society is required to promote and encourage female education especially in engineering. Universities can focus on attracting females to enroll in engineering programs and provide an environment that gives confidence to women [5]. Additionally, if all regional universities started offering all the majors of engineering for both genders, this will give females the belief that they can fit in the major that they desire to study.…”

Section: Female Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Socio-cultural Factors in Qatar on Females in Engineering

Alsheeb¹,

Hodges²

2019 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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This paper provides a detailed insight into the Arab culture, specifically, the perceptions of Qatari culture on women in engineering. The Qatari culture greatly discourage and limit females from entering engineering fields, which is mainly due to Qatari's culture mentality. In addition, this paper will show how the socio-cultural factors in Qatar plays a main role in hindering females from pursuing engineering. The three main factors are gender roles, female education, female in mixed workplace. These factors unfortunately depriving women from their rights of independence, education, and choice of career.

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Being Female and an Engineering Student in Qatar: Successes, Challenges, and Recommendations

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Who will man the rigs when we go?” transnational demographic fever dreams between Qatar and Texas

Who will man the rigs when we go?” transnational demographic fever dreams between Qatar and Texas

Women in STEM/SET: gender gap research review of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – a meta-analysis

The Impact of Socio-cultural Factors in Qatar on Females in Engineering

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