Women in Technical Education (A Sociological Study)

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Studies on women in various fields are gaining increasing importance today. We find women holding very high posts and playing very important roles not only as administrators and educators but also as engineers and technologists. So one more carefully researched work on women engineering students should not be an unwelcome addition to the already existing list of works on women.

The present work is a sociological study of women students in engineering education. The study is based on the data collected, with the help of a questionnaire, from four engineering colleges viz. The Adichunchangiri Institute of Technology, Chikmagalur, Jawahar Lal Nehru College of Engineering, Shimoga, The Manland College of Engineering, Hassan and the Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore. It has looked into such important aspects as the socio-economic background of women engineering students, the factors motivating them to choose a technical career and also various other issues related to their student career.

R. INDIRA is a Reader in Sociology in the Post Graduate Department of Sociology in the Univer sity of Mysore, Mysore. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Mysore in 1982 for her thesis entitled 'A Sociological Study of Engineer ing Education. Her main areas of interest and specialisation are 'sociology of professional edu cation' and 'Women's studies'. Her articles on women's issues have been published both in Eng lish and Kannada Journals. Besides, she has also participated in a number of seminars and confer ences focussing on women's issues. She is also the author of a book on Research Methods in Social Sciences in Kannada.

The advent of freedom ushered a new era with respect to education of women. Enrolment of women students improved rapidly at all levels of education. Women started making inroads into different fields of higher education too. Certain fields, however, remained the bastion of male students and among these, engineering was the most important. It is only in the last six or eight years that there has been a gradual increase in the number of women students in engineering colleges.

The gradually increasing number of women students in engineering colleges throws up a number of crucial questions among which some of the im portant ones are: (i) From what section of the society are these women students drawn, (ii) What are their motivations and aspirations and the criteria of their fitness to take up engineering students, (iii) Having chosen this line of study how do they fair in their studies, (iv) As women students in a male dominated course how do they cope with the problems that may arise, and (v) What their plans for the future are.

**Contents and Sample Pages**