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

迫切需要了解工程行业的高流失率，特别是在就业的头五到十年内。根据科学文献，现有的研究没有系统地考察新来的男性和女性工程师的性别组织社会化经历。因此，这个项目考察了新来的工程师的性别组织社会化。它开始了一项长期的工作，通过创建一个经验支持的、特定于工程的性别社会化模式，开发与交叉的非规范身份相兼容的工程专业的文化适应过程。综合教育和研究计划可能会对工程教育领域产生巨大影响，因为它优先考虑未得到充分利用的性别理论的重要性，招募男性参与性别研究和制度改革，并解决工程工作场所研究方面的差距。归根结底，该项目促进了新来的工程师社会化方面的更大平等，以减少工程职业的流失，并扩大未被充分代表的群体在工程中的参与。该项目的目标是开发土木工程工作场所性别社会化的理论模型，并创建基于研究的干预措施，以实现更具包容性的社会化。混合方法的数据将在四年内通过每月两次的个人社会化日志(在该项目过程中开发的一种新工具)和每年两次对来自全国各地的不同新来的工程师的两次深入访谈来纵向收集。预期的项目成果包括确定和描述组织社会化的各个方面(例如，做法、流程、关系和社会网络)，包括它们是如何交叉性别划分的(即，在种族等其他类型的身份上有所不同)。研究成果和由此创建的模型正被用于为土木工程毕业生和土木工程专业人员创建专业形成材料。材料也在全国和地方工程公司的顶石设计课程和讲习班中得到应用。此外，该项目还同时为工程教育、工程研究、组织研究和性别研究等领域作出贡献。

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.