Navigating gendered and classed relations in engineering education: Working‐class women in marketized Chilean higher education
Carolina Guzmán‐Valenzuela, Stephen Darwin, Andrés Rojas‐Murphy TagleAbstract
Background
Despite expanded access to higher education, engineering in Chile remains embedded in gendered and socio‐economic structures shaped by a highly marketized and stratified educational system.
Objective
This study examines how working‐class women navigate intersecting gender and class inequalities within Chilean engineering programs.
Design/Methods
Drawing on a critical feminist framework informed by Community Cultural Wealth, this qualitative study analyzes semi‐structured interviews with 15 women engineering students. An iterative thematic analysis was conducted to explore how participants interpret, negotiate, and respond to learning dynamics, relationships, and institutional conditions.
Results
Participants described navigating overt and covert gender bias and stereotypes, academic gaps and financial pressures, while mobilizing aspirational, familial, social, navigational, and resistance capitals to navigate higher education. Their experiences illustrate how navigation is shaped by uneven institutional cultures and resources.
Conclusions
This study shows that expanded access does not equate to substantive equality and shows how gendered and classed forms of capital operate within a highly marketized higher education system. The findings underscore the need for policy and institutional reforms that address structural inequities in market‐oriented systems while recognizing the collective assets women mobilize to navigate engineering education.