Despite numerous research studies that have examined why women are
underrepresented in engineering education programmes, the phenomenon is still not
fully understood, and no effective general solutions have been found. In this context,
analysing women’s experiences in engineering education can provide insights
regarding the evolution of the students’ learning strategies and socialization
processes as well as contextual factors that influence their choice to persist in or
leave their courses. This paper explores the pertinence of enhancing
phenomenological analyses conducted in engineering education research by
incorporating sociological perspectives, drawing on sociological studies that explore
the relationship between gender, STEM education and persistence in STEM
courses. The aim is to contribute to building a conceptual framework that, on the one
hand, captures lived experience in engineering education and, on the other hand,
analyses the social settings around engineering itself, i.e., the objectively significant
circumstances, that condition female students’ attitudes, behaviours, and
expectations towards persisting or not in engineering courses. Conclusions suggest
the conceptual framework around subjectively meaningful experiences, proposed by
Alfred Schutz, who followed the phenomenological school of thought initiated by
Edmund Husserl, might be useful in understanding not only (a) the representations of the subjective social world for women in engineering education (that induces
feelings of identification, security, symbolic values, and ultimately social actions), but
also (b) the intersubjective social system that structures daily life, legitimizes
behavioural patterns, assigns roles, and defines group membership along education
in engineering. Expanding engineering education researchers’ conceptions of
phenomenology, to consider more of the structural issues that influence women’s
experiences and choices, can help generate increasingly meaningful research
findings