Hawke Research Institute
Gender and inclusivity in engineering and construction
management educationResearchers: Assoc Prof Judy Gill and Assoc Prof Julie Mills
Judy Gill and Julie Mills are involved in ongoing research to improve inclusivity in undergraduate programs in engineering. Although many girls now excel in maths and science at high school, female students are still a minority group in tertiary engineering programs. In conjunction with colleague Mary Ayre from the University of Glamorgan (formerly the project leader for the UniSA Inclusive Curriculum Project in 1998–99), they are writing a book, Gender-inclusive engineering education, to be published by Routledge in 2009.
Associate Professors Mills and Gill are also teaming with Virginia Mehrtens to expand this research to include students undertaking
undergraduate degrees in construction management and economics. This project
will provide academics with advice on inclusive curriculum when teaching engineering, construction
management and related science disciplines. It is funded by an
Australian Learning and Teaching Council grant for two years from October
2008. UniSA is the lead partner in the grant with the University of
Melbourne, Newcastle and UTS as partners. This project will also develop
curriculum modules on education for a gender-inclusive professional
workplace and work with accreditation bodies to embed inclusive curriculum
as part of accreditation criteria. A user-friendly website will be developed
as a resource bank which will include guidelines for implementing inclusive
curriculum, models of suitable materials, examples of good practice and an
annotated bibliography of relevant literature.
