A gender perspective in the teaching of technology innovation: an experience in engineering education

Abstract

The gender gap is still an issue in science and technology. With technology being part of everyday life for most of the population, the incorporation of the gender perspective when developing a technology is essential to achieve a society based on equality. Specifically, the gender perspective looks at the impact of gender on people's opportunities, social roles and interactions. Technology must be then developed taking into account people, linking concepts such as gender perspective, diversity and inclusion to technological development. However, in the context of engineering education, the initiatives and methodological proposals to address teaching and learning with a gender perspective are still scarce. This work describes a case study to introduce the gender perspective in the teaching of the Technology Innovation course at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). For this purpose, an analysis is performed to assess the level of gender content inclusiveness of the course. A questionnaire is carried out in order to explore the perceptions and understandings of gender inclusion by engineering students in the discipline of Technology Innovation. The contents and delivery of the course are analysed from diverse points of view, including gender-based professional aspects of the discipline, use of the results of the disciplinary research, and teaching methodologies. The outcome of this paper is a series of recommendations that can be valuable in providing faculty with direction for curriculum change towards gender inclusiveness in technological courses.