Imagery and Gender in Canadian Engineering Recruitment Documents

Abstract

-Gender imbalance is a persistent issueacross Canadian engineering programs. Efforts have been made to increase the enrolment of undergraduate women in engineering, but reaching gender parity in engineering has been an elusive goal. This research examines program recruitment images and videos from 18 Canadian engineering university websites. Using content analysis and thematic coding of video transcriptions, we coded 440 unique images and 37 recruitment videos. We find that women students are overrepresented in images and in videos, at rates higher than we expect given their proportion within programs. We compare the presentation of women and men across several dimensions and identify key differences in women's representation in relevant settings, attire, and in the kinds of learning experiences they emphasize in videos. We conclude with suggestions for ways programs can present a more neutral portrayal of women in recruitment materials.

Images of the Future: Gender and Portrayals of Faculty and Industry Members in Canadian Engineering School Recruitment Materials

“…A total of 854 individuals appeared in images, and they were coded as students [5], faculty, industry members, and people whose role was unknown. Of these, 170 were faculty (21.8% of whom were women), and 104 were industry members (35.6% of whom were women) ( Table 1).…”

“…Based on our previous work, we suspect that a lot of importance is placed on the inclusion of women in recruitment materials, as we found that female students were being represented well above their actual enrolled levels [5]. This representation is notable given that both male and female students more often draw men when asked to draw a scientist [6], and given that textbooks for prerequisite high school science courses are likely to show only a small number of women scientists [7], along with other forms of subtle sexism in images [8].…”

“…Roles (student, faculty, industry, unknown) were determined through image context as well as captions and other textual information. We previously presented the student results [5], and in this paper we focus on the faculty and industry roles. (Coding details in [5]).…”

“…We previously presented the student results [5], and in this paper we focus on the faculty and industry roles. (Coding details in [5]).…”

“…While there are some concerns about retention [2], the imbalance primarily begins with the low enrolment of women into engineering programs [3]. In exploring this issue, we previously examined Canadian engineering schools' recruitment materials for the presentation of gender in the text [4] and in the imagery involving students [5]. In this paper, we consider how people working in engineering -faculty members and industry members -are presented in recruitment materials, given that these images may also influence how students anticipate what a career in engineering might be like and what potential role models may be available for them along the way.…”