CAREER: Characterizing Gendered Socialization of Newcomer Engineers to Promote Inclusive Practices and Retention of a Diverse Workforce

我们迫切需要了解工程职业的高流失率，特别是在就业的前五到十年。根据科学文献，目前还没有研究系统地考察了新入职的男性和女性工程师的性别组织社会化经历。因此，本项目考察了新工程师的性别组织社会化。它通过创建一个经验支持的和工程特定的性别社会化模型，开始了发展工程专业文化适应过程的长期工作，该过程与交叉的非规范性身份兼容。教育研究综合计划将优先考虑未被充分利用的性别理论，将男性纳入性别研究和制度变革，解决工程工作场所研究的差距，可能会对工程教育领域产生巨大影响。最终，该项目促进了新工程师社会化的更大平等，以减少工程职业的流失，并扩大工程中代表性不足群体的参与。该项目的目标是建立土木工程工作场所性别社会化的理论模型，并为更具包容性的社会化创造基于研究的干预措施。通过每月两次的个人社会化日志（在这个项目过程中开发的一种新工具）和每年两次的对来自全国各地的30名不同的新工程师的深度访谈，混合方法的数据将在四年的时间里纵向收集。预期的项目成果包括组织社会化（例如，实践，过程，关系和社会网络）的性别方面的识别和特征，包括它们如何交叉地性别化（即，在其他类型的身份中变化，如种族）。研究成果和由此产生的模型被用于制作土木工程专业毕业生和土木工程专业人员的专业信息材料。材料也在全国和地方的顶点设计课程和工程公司的研讨会上实施。此外，本项目同时对工程教育、工程研究、组织研究和性别研究领域作出贡献。

There is a pressing need to understand the high rates of attrition from engineering careers, particularly within the first five to ten years of employment. According to the scientific literature, no existing research has systematically examined the gendered organizational socialization experiences of newcomer men and women engineers. Accordingly, this project examines gendered organizational socialization of newcomer engineers. It begins the long-term work of developing processes of acculturation to the engineering profession that are compatible with intersecting non-normative identities, by creating an empirically-supported and engineering-specific model of gendered socialization. The integrated education and research plan is likely to yield a dramatic impact on the field of engineering education by prioritizing the importance of underutilized gender theories, enrolling men in gender research and systems change, and addressing the gap in research on engineering workplaces. Ultimately, this project facilitates greater equality in the socialization of newcomer engineers to decrease attrition from engineering careers and broaden participation of underrepresented groups in engineering. The objectives of this project are to develop a theoretical model of gendered socialization in civil engineering workplaces and to create research-based interventions for more inclusive socialization. Mixed-methods data will be collected longitudinally over four years, through twice-monthly Individual Socialization Logs (a new instrument developed during the course of this project) and twice-yearly in-depth interviews with thirty diverse newcomer engineers from around the country. Expected project outcomes include identification and characterization of facets of organizational socialization (e.g., practices, processes, relationships and social networks) that are gendered, including how they are gendered intersectionally (i.e., varying across other types of identity, such as race). The research findings and the model created from them are being utilized to create professional formation materials for graduating civil engineering students and civil engineering professionals. Materials are also being implemented nationally and locally in capstone design courses and workshops for engineering companies. Further, this project contributes, simultaneously, to the fields of engineering education, engineering studies, organizational studies, and gender studies.