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

迫切需要了解工程职业的高流失率，特别是在就业的前五到十年内。根据科学文献，没有现有的研究系统地研究了新来的男性和女性工程师的性别组织社会化经验。因此，本研究探讨新来的工程师的性别组织社会化。它开始了长期的工作，通过创建一个由专业人员支持的、针对工程的性别社会化模式，发展与交叉的非规范性身份相兼容的工程专业文化适应过程。综合教育和研究计划可能会产生巨大的影响，工程教育领域的优先重视未充分利用的性别理论，招收男性在性别研究和系统的变化，并解决差距在工程工作场所的研究。最终，该项目促进了新工程师社会化方面的更大平等，以减少工程职业的自然减员，并扩大代表性不足的群体对工程的参与。 该项目的目标是在土木工程工作场所建立一个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。混合方法的数据将在四年内纵向收集，通过每月两次的个人社会化调查（在本项目过程中开发的一种新工具）和每年两次的深度访谈，来自全国各地的30名不同的新工程师。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、过程、关系和社交网络），包括它们如何在交叉方面（即，在其他类型的身份之间变化，例如种族）。研究结果和从他们创建的模型正在被用来创建专业的形成材料，为毕业的土木工程专业学生和土木工程专业人士。这些材料也在全国和地方的顶点设计课程和工程公司讲习班中使用。此外，该项目同时有助于工程教育、工程研究、组织研究和性别研究领域。

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.