Diverse, High-Achieving Young Women and the Pursuit of Engineering: Access, Accumulation, and Activation of Capital

Abstract

U.S. women continue to be underrepresented in engineering. Based on seven years of longitudinal, qualitative data on high school-to-college pathways of high-achieving young women (n = 57)-many of whom were women of color from low-income families and all of whom expressed interest in engineering- we examine the economic, social, and cultural capital that affected their persistence in engineering, and we introduce the concept of "engineering capital." In this article, we focus on seven of these young women to examine how positioning in the hierarchy of U.S. society affected their ability to access, accumulate, and activate engineering-related capital in pursuit of college engineering and how relevant institutions responded to the women's efforts. We conclude that the coordination of capital, identity formation, and stamina necessary to pursue engineering is extremely difficult without the benefit of a highly privileged set of circumstances.