The role of a humanitarian focus in increasing gender diversity in engineering education

Context: Diversity within project teams is known to be advantageous when tackling complex problems, such as the barriers to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To enhance the engineering profession's contribution to the SDGs, it is now more important than ever that a lack of gender diversity in the sector is resolved. Research from around the world is demonstrating that linking STEM subjects to positive social impact leads to a more gender diverse student cohort. As an organisation with both an explicit focus on social impact and relatively high participation of women in its education initiatives, Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) is well placed to further investigate the current and future role that humanitarianism plays in the creation of a gender diverse engineering sector. Purpose: This research investigates the links between gender diversity and humanitarian engineering education initiatives, and explores initial insights into how factors such as global relevance and social impact could be utilised by engineering educators to create a more diverse engineering profession. Approach: Students opting to participate in EWB humanitarian engineering education initiatives were asked via a survey tool to identify their gender and top five motivations for choosing to participate in that program. A predefined list of 24 motivations was generated from an analysis of previous motivation statements. The motivation statements were categorised into six themes: values, career, social-connectedness, social pressure / encouragement, understanding, and enhancement. Results: Preliminary analysis of survey responses indicate that both men and women are primarily motivated to participate in EWB initiatives due to values-alignment, regardless of the program type (e.g. formal curriculum, volunteer opportunity, overseas professional development opportunity). When looking at the broader data set male respondents tend towards 'career' and 'enhancement' motivators with female respondents tending towards 'social connectedness' motivators. Conclusions / lessons learned: This research demonstrates that both men and women are motivated to participate in humanitarian initiatives primarily due feeling aligned with the aim of that initiative. The two initiatives discussed, which are currently attracting a relatively high proportion of women, provide a rich context to begin to understand the implications of humanitarian engineering offerings on diversity as both humanitarian engineering and gender diversity become increasingly prioritised at Australian universities.