Abstract
This chapter presents a study carried out in three Danish higher education study programmes within science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM), each with a heavy imbalance in students’ biological sex. In Denmark few female students apply for computer science and physics with nanotechnology while few male students apply for molecular biomedicine. The study explores how students of the minority biological sex attain recognition within the study programme and how they negotiate their identities to gain a sense of belonging. The results show how both male and female students, being the minority in their study programme, need to engage in narrow gendered identity negotiation-processes to belong and become socially and academically integrated into their new study programme. We show how female students need to position themselves as non-feminine and strive to become ‘one of the boys’ whereas male students are restricted to positioning a certain kind of masculinity to become recognized. There is more room for doing gender within computer science for the female students than within physics and nanotechnology. The male students within molecular biomedicine are expected to position themselves as something different from the girls. Their negotiation strategy to get integrated into their study programme could be labelled as ‘segregation’. The implications of these results are discussed.
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- 1.
We distinguish between “sex” and “gender”. “Sex” refers to the distinction between male and female based on biological attributes while “gender” refers to the way male and female students interpret the social and culturally embedded frames and expectations of being male or female (see Chap. 4). Most of this chapter deals with gender (the students handling the expectations), but we sometimes refer to the biological distinction (e.g., the distribution of male and female students) and then use the term “sex”. To emphasise the difference, we add “biological” sex.
- 2.
Please note that the interviews were made in Danish. We have chosen verbatim translations rather than linguistically correct ones.
- 3.
At many Danish Universities older students arrange a retreat, typically a weekend or a whole week, where the new students are taken to a summerhouse. The intention is social and to introduce the students to the study life through the experiences of older students.
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Madsen, L.M., Holmegaard, H.T., Ulriksen, L. (2015). Being a Woman in a Man’s Place or Being a Man in a Woman’s Place: Insights into Students’ Experiences of Science and Engineering at University. In: Henriksen, E., Dillon, J., Ryder, J. (eds) Understanding Student Participation and Choice in Science and Technology Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7793-4_19
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