Exploring Moments of Agency for Girls during an Engineering Activity

Abstract

The persistent underrepresentation of women inengineering continues to be a complex and difficult challenge. The interactionsof young women and their parents during early, family-oriented engineering designexperiences can provide girls with opportunities to express agency during anengineering activity, which can ultimately contribute to the development ofsustained interest and self-efficacy in engineering. However, few studies haveexamined these parent-child interactions to date, and none have specificallyfocused on moments when girls express agency during an engineering designprocess. In this paper, we examine one such setting: a museum exhibit thatengages visitors in engineering design activity. A qualitative content analysiswas performed on transcripts from a total of 39 family groups videotaped at theexhibit, each involving a daughter between the ages of 5-12 and at least oneparent. Qualitative codes describing the ways children expressed agency and ledinteractions with their parents included directing,proposing design ideas, and asking questions. Interestingly, the analysisalso suggests that the young women in this study tended to direct their mothersmore than their fathers. Although focused specifically on parent-childinteractions, this study can inform both formal and informal engineeringeducators who engage young students in engineering activities.

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