Diversity and Gender in Engineering

Aim

After completing the course, the student will be able to:

• Describe, explain, and critically analyze gender relations in connection with technology, technical design, and social justice.
• Describe and orally discuss the interaction between gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and technical education and workplaces from both historical and contemporary perspectives.
• Apply a theoretical perspective from the course to an empirical example related to the student’s own field of technology.
• In writing, investigate, analyze, and critically examine gender-political issues that arise in virtual contexts.

Content

The course provides a broad introduction to critical perspectives on technology and technical design, linked to gender, diversity, and social justice. During the course, the following topics are discussed and addressed:

• How gender and identity relate to people’s lived experiences and influence how and what we know about the world.
• The concept of identity, including gender, and how it is shaped by factors such as place, time, and context.
• How technically oriented professions and workplaces, and their working conditions, are influenced by historical and contemporary conceptions of gender and other social categories.
• How the virtual world can have real consequences for how different people experience and are affected by it.