Gendered transitions, career identities and possible selves: the case of engineering graduates

Papafilippou, Vanda; Bentley, Laura

Abstract

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article, drawing upon the Paired Peers project, a longitudinal qualitative study (n=90), examines how seven UK engineering graduates, four women and three men, construct their career identities during the transitionary period from university to work. It explores how gender and the occupational cultures that reside within the sector, and the wider sociocultural context, affect women’s careers identities, choices and trajectories. The longitudinal design, characteristics of the cohort and the theoretical framework of possible selves contribute to the originality of this empirical research. In this paper, we show how female graduates gradually adapted their occupational aspirations and career identities to fit with socio-cultural expectations and how they struggled to construct viable ‘engineering’ selves in the vital career identity development phase of their first years of employment when most female STEM graduates change careers.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 24, 2017
• Publication Date: Nov 17, 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 4, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 6, 2019
• Journal: Journal of Education and Work
• Print ISSN: 1363-9080
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-9435
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 827-839
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2017.1375088
• Keywords: organizational behavior and human resource management, education, public administration
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/881487
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2017.1375088
• Related Public URLs: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13639080.2017.1375088
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the Journal of Education and Work on 6th September 2017, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2017.1375088.
• Contract Date: Oct 4, 2017