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This study investigates career intentions and students’ engineering attitudes in BME, with a focus on gender differences. Data from n = 716 undergraduate biomedical engineering students at a large public research institution in the United States were analyzed using hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis. Results revealed five clusters of intended post-graduation plans: Engineering Job and Graduate School, Any Job, Non-Engineering Job and Graduate School, Any Option, and Any Graduate School. Women were evenly distributed across clusters; there was no evidence of gendered career preferences. The main findings in regard to engineering attitudes reveal significant differences by cluster in interest, attainment value, utility value, and professional identity, but not in academic self-efficacy. Yet, within clusters the only gender differences were women’s lower engineering academic self-efficacy, interest and professional identity compared to men. Implications and areas of future research are discussed. 

This study utilizes interviews with 33 racially diverse high school girls who have expressed interest in engineering careers. Using the framework of critical consciousness and informed by intersectional theories, the authors examine their views about gender inequality in engineering. Results revealed that while most articulated systemic understandings of inequality, Black participants were particularly likely to exhibit this critical reflection. Yet many young women revealed a more emerging form of critical reflection, particularly Asian participants. Few respondents expressed critical self-efficacy, or confidence to challenge gender inequality in their future careers; such views were almost exclusively held by Black and Latinx respondents. In contrast, White respondents commonly invoked a “lean-in” self-efficacy to be successful navigating, but not challenging, the White male-dominated engineering workforce. Overall, we find clear evidence that young women’s racialized identities have implications not only for their understandings of gender inequality, but also for their motivation to disrupt it.