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Investigates how women reconcile the two concepts of family and career. Considers the relative importance of each and questions whether these can truly be reconciled to the individual’s satisfaction. Looks at the attitudes and reasonings held by differing age ranges of women and compares their changing needs.

States that the participation of men and women in the German academic and scientific system is unequally distributed. Shows that the higher the status at the university, the lower the female proportion and that women also choose different subjects to men. Asks why more men choose science and engineering and what social cognitive characteristics do women show who opt for a “male” subject. Presents the theoretical background to the above before providing some insights using surveys carried out in Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to present an interview with Barbara Schwarze, Coordinator of MINT.

Presents an overview of MINT: the German national initiative for women in SET.

The building of a strong national network is crucial but it is also important to establish connections to comparable initiatives in other countries.

The paper offers insights into MINT as an innovative process.

This conference review aims to address major issues regarding the position of women in science and technology as well as key technical topics in the debate of globalisation with a specific focus on chances and new opportunities for women in a changing world.

The article is based on a report on the 14th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists that was hosted by the Conceil National des Ingénieurs et des Scientifiques de France (CNISF). Organised by an international committee, the conference was held at the Polytech University in Lille, France, 15‐18 July 2008.

The exchanges generated by such an international gathering of (mostly) women experts and scholars from diverse scientific fields were a rich source of learning and inspiration. In view of the fact that the lectures not only addressed the current situation but focused also on the development of an international vision and new opportunities for women in a globalised world, the conference will influence science policies and measures for equal opportunities.

The conference brought together over 500 participants from 60 countries.

Scholarship on women in engineering education mainly focuses on the question of how to attract more women to this subject. The topic concerning women in engineering education is here guided by the question of why women leave engineering studies. The paper aims to examine the main conflicts women encounter in engineering education and to derive implications for interventions suited for strengthening institutional bonding forces.

The question is approached through case analyses of 40 interviews with women and men (as the control group) who have left their studies. In addition, repertory grids were carried out with all interviewees and analysed. On the basis of these analyses, five types of dropout could be defined. Two case studies with women are presented in detail in this article. These cases are especially representative of two types of dropout that are characterised by high quotas of women.

The central conflicts of women in engineering education are often either suffering from poor grades or that women being afflicted by a subjective feeling of not gaining a deep understanding of technical phenomena. These two conflicts represent the two pillars of identity formation in engineering education that are necessary to bind students to their studies: passing the exams with good grades and feeling self‐efficacious in the handling of technology.

Up‐to‐date subject‐specific studies on dropout in engineering education – especially with a focus on women – are marginal in Europe, and particularly so in Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to present some outcomes of the PROMETEA research project funded by the European Union under FP6 from 2005 to 2007 (see www.prometea.info). PROMETEA is a strongly multidisciplinary and collaborative project involving 17 research teams from 13 different countries.

The paper combines existing knowledge with new in‐depth pilot studies on women academics in engineering and technology, linked to qualitative research work on the experiences of both women and men working in this field, using cross‐comparison as a research strategy.

The paper identifies different issues for further investigations on women researchers in engineering and technology.

The paper focuses on comparative perspectives between countries, disciplines or research topics, age groups, academic and industrial research career paths, etc. The similarity and diversity of academic settings are discussed with an emphasis on the impact of the changing environment of research, the balance between research, teaching and administrative workload with its influence on career choices and patterns, the interactions between industry and academia, work‐life balance, the proportion of women academics in the field, gender awareness, and so on.

There are few female‐led enterprises in the male‐dominated occupations of science, engineering and technology (SET) and very little research is devoted to this area. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that investigated differences and similarities in career aspirations, attitudes to enterprise, and experiences/opinions regarding setting up a business, among PhD students in SET disciplines.

A confidential online survey was distributed via e‐mail to all doctorate students in SET departments in the Yorkshire and Humber region, with an 8.6 per cent return rate.

The results show that all respondents had a preference for work in academia, but men were also more likely to indicate a preference for work in industry and women for work in the public sector. Gender differences were further pronounced in students' attitudes to and knowledge of enterprise. Women provided more potential advantages of owning a business than men; however, they also reported having less business training and/or experience, being less aware of entrepreneurial possibilities, and being less likely to believe that their business ideas could have commercial potential or to discuss enterprise with their supervisor. The results indicate a lack of information and lack of encouragement by academic staff for female students' potential progression from PhD study into enterprise.

This paper provides an insight into the aspirations of SET doctorate students from a gender perspective. The results of this study should help academic staff and higher education practitioners to improve their strategies for promoting entrepreneurial possibilities to female students.

The paper raises the question of a persisting masculine dominance in engineering disciplines and the reasons behind it. Rather than addressing gender‐specific socialisation as a cause of the under‐representation of women in engineering education, it aims to focus on the social and cultural practices of engineering itself, asking to what extent these practices are gendered and/or gendering.

The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in two departments at a technical university in Switzerland: mechanical engineering and materials science. An exemplary piece of field data is analysed in order to generate relevant concepts for characterising and contrasting cultures in engineering disciplines. Results are discussed in the framework of Bourdieu's theory of the scientific field.

Group culture in materials science values individuality and plurality, hence leaving more scope for gender diversity; group culture in mechanical engineering values the subordination of individual needs to group norms and tends to reproduce features of homosocial male worlds. The results support the hypothesis that disciplinary cultures in engineering are gendered and have a gendering effect of their own.

Case studies in other disciplines and national contexts are needed to broaden the empirical basis of the argument.

Policies to achieve gender balance in higher education should not only aim at supporting women, but also at changing disciplinary cultures.

The paper presents a shift of focus from women's socialisation to gendering practices in engineering disciplines.