PEDAGOGIC ISSUES IN THE ACCESS OF WOMEN TO BUILDING HIGHER
EDUCATION.
	
Angela Srivastava, Faculty of Design and the Built Environment/Faculty of Health and
Social Care, 
Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK.
	
	
ABSTRACT
	
Women are under-represented in all areas of construction/building education, training and
employment in the UK. The focus of this research is the access of women to
construction/building higher education. Traditional and feminist theoretical perspectives
have been used to explore the problem. The three main bodies of theoretical literature used
relate to gender relations, the sociology of education, and critiques of science and
technology. Little substantial theoretical work has come from within construction, and
relevant studies focusing on higher education are relatively sparse. This paper asks:- How
does the nature of construction affect construction higher education disciplines? 70 in depth
interviews were carried out with key actors affecting and affected by the problem; women
construction students; women nursing students (a comparison group); male construction
students; construction tutors/lecturers; construction Heads of Departments and; Education
Directors of the relevant professional bodies. The research finds that the gendered nature of
construction produces a masculine disciplinary culture, affecting course content and delivery
and the nature of recruitment.
	
Key words:- Women, building, pedagogy, access.
	
LITERATURE
With a few significant exceptions (eg. Greed 1991, Gale 1992) very little substantial
theoretical or challenging work has come from within Building or related areas. Studies
focusing on male dominated areas of higher education are also relatively sparse although
valuable critiques are made by writers such as Thomas (1990) and Byrne (1990). In this
research, therefore, both traditional and feminist theories have been used to explore the
problem. The three main bodies of theoretical literature used relate to gender, education and
science, and technology. The most significant insights have arisen out of feminist analyses of
gender relations, science and technology, and education and knowledge. While a wealth of
literature relating to gender relations now exists it has been necessary to 'borrow' concepts
from related and parallel areas such as masculinity and sport, organisational culture,
critiques of general science and technology, analyses of disciplinary cultures and
professions, and debates about higher education structures and purpose.  
	
METHODOLOGY
	Key actors affecting and affected by the problem were identified and, using experience
from action research, and theoretical insights, a semi-structured interview survey was
designed. Approximately 70 in-depth interviews were carried out, in 10 UK universities,
with 16 women Building students, 6 women Nursing students (a comparison group), 20 male
Building students, 20 Building tutors/lecturers, 8 Building Heads of Departments (Heads)
and 4 Education Directors of the relevant professional bodies (Chartered Institute of
Building Services Engineers, CIBSE, Institute of Civil Engineers, ICE, Royal Institute of
Chartered Surveyors, RICS, and Chartered Institute of Building, CIOB). Qualitative data
was gathered relating to: the social and cultural character of Building higher education and
how it affects women's choice and experience of it; how the nature of Building affects
Building higher education disciplines and students experiences of it; and the role of higher
education policy and practices in affecting women's access to, and experience of, Building
higher education.
 
FINDINGS RELATING TO PEDAGOGIC ISSUES IN BUILDING AND BUILDING HIGHER
EDUCATION
Building process, practice and skills 

	While tutors place explicit value on developed skills and Building knowledge certain
personality characteristics, such as determination, being extrovert and gregarious, and
confidence are implicitly valued and encouraged by tutors and students. Reflexive, analytic,
flexible and lateral thinking are less valued which reflects a relative lack of critique of the
uniform, planned, routine Building practices by Building students and also by tutors.
Building site experience and socialisation is appealing to male Building students, in
particular, being in charge of people and buildings, controlling, giving orders and
decision-making. While it can be argued Building is a social and human activity, male
Building students, interpret this as managing people rather than in terms of responding to
human and social need. Consequently, communication skills, responsibility and other
interpersonal skills, while being valued, are seen in functional, positivistic terms.
	
	Male Building students hold glorified impressions of the management of sites and site
workers and this view embraces acceptance of a strictly hierarchical system and the primary
concerns of time and money. Professional relations and practices, however, are seen to be
inefficient by students, tutors and Heads, and characterised by some of these as masculine.
It is contentious whether educators are willing or able to modify Building practices. It is also
problematic that some tutors see such practices as inherent to Building so that, for example,
the participation of women will make no difference to such practices and that, moreover,
women participating are attracted by these very same characteristics of Building. However,
women Building students show particular interest in conservation, design, planning and
other problem-related projects whereas male Building students tend to favour the actual
production processes. The combination of inside and outside work offered by the Building
process is attractive to almost all of the Building students, with women Building students
particularly attracted to travel and variety of work and male Building students particularly
attracted to the practical nature of the process.
	
	Thomas shows that students' choice of subject is not merely personal preference but a
function of external forces channelling students into a choice between the falsely
dichotomised science or arts choice. Such channelling reflects dichotomous notions of
masculinity and femininity (Stanley 1990). Women Building students' interest in Building
within a social context challenges these false dichotomies. However, belief that the Building
culture is inherent in the process, rather than socially constructed, serves to resist such
contradictions and to preserve and reproduce the stereotype of Building as instrumental and
masculine. Women Building students' preferences for travel and variety in work also
contradict traditional assumptions of girls' and women's preference for repetitive and office
types of work.
	
	Thomas's concept of 'world view' is useful in illustrating women Building students' wider
vision of Building in comparison to that of male Building students. However, this wider view
of Building is not facilitated within the course culture and the traditional, historical
masculine values and image are reinforced, which as Thomas shows, has implications for
students' gender identity and identification with the subject. Premature specialisation at
school (Pratt et al 1984) forces a narrow view of disciplines and channelling of male and
female Building students to 'appropriate' subjects. This channelling conforms to the gendered
identity of subjects (Kelly 1985) and dichotomous notions of male and female abilities,
interests and values (Koblitz 1987).
	
	Male Building students identify with instrumental views of Building rather than the
social, problem-solving approaches preferred by women Building students. The
authoritarian, conservative, emotionally reticent characteristics of science discussed by
Head (1980) can be seen in the Building process and are seen to be attractive to male
Building students who enjoy the hierarchy, the primacy of time and money, controlling
people and production. The values of the course reflect the values of Building and have
implications in terms of lack of flexibility of the course. Transferable skills are developed in
order to function within existing practices rather than to develop critical awareness of
practices. This approach emphasises the training role of courses which recognises students
subject choice as based on what Speakman (1980) calls 'objective criteria' which involves a
focus on job requirements, job characteristics and necessary individual characteristics. Both
male and female Building students accept the need to conform to existing practices which
suggests Building students are orientated towards work, in terms of valuing immediacy of
rewards and prospects, transferability of skills, and commitment and involvement with
Building. This supports Hearn and Olzak's (1984) suggestion that ambitious women value
vocational disciplines and certification to overcome labour-market inequality.
	
	Male and female Building students do differ in terms of what Speakman terms 'identity
of job outcomes with self-concept'. Deem and Salaman (1985) point to the multi-causal
factors of occupational demarcation which includes not only preferences but also class,
ethnicity, age and gender, and 'industry-specific customs and practices'. The contradictory
position of educators criticising, yet not actively challenging, professional relations and
practices through courses supports the suggestion that vocational disciplines serve actively
to regulate entry to Building professions (Garnsey et al 1985, Goodland 1984), with male
Building students gaining the majority of access, membership and status from courses.
	
	The valued characteristics of determination, being extrovert, gregariousness and
confidence, and the relative devaluing of more reflective and analytic skills, also reflects the
training role of vocational disciplines, the powerful effects of the external orientation of
vocational courses (Hearn and Olzak 1984), and anti-academic tendencies in Building higher
education (Gale 1992, Greed 1990). Existing knowledge, skills and practices are transmitted
by tutors under the guise of professionalism and therefore, for students, take on
unquestionable authority, resulting in conservatism (Barnett 1990). Hearn (1987) suggests
masculinity and masculine culture are transmitted through this process of cultural
transmission and are demarcated from other, particularly what is defined as feminine,
values. Tutors' reluctance to challenge existing Building practices through education supports
Gales' (1992b) argument that Building education acts as a gatekeeper to industry's masculine
culture. Students' acceptance of this suggests they are socialised to fit into the Building
culture rather than developing a critical understanding of it. 
	
The nature of Building disciplines

	Tutors and some professional bodies define Building and Building practices in terms of
technical problems and technical solutions and therefore support the traditional core
knowledge as maths, science and technology. Many female Building students find this
constricted focus difficult, irrelevant, disappointing and uninteresting. There is some
recognition of the need for a more balanced, broader, curriculum, especially the inclusion of
management which women Building students enjoy and find useful and relevant. However,
change is limited because tutors, the male majority of students and professional bodies
support of the primacy of the technical definition of Building problems. 
	
	Messing's (1993) proposals for a 'good', if not feminist, pedagogy are markedly more
radical than those introduced in Building education which are gender-blind and do not
challenge, nor even recognise, the underlying unbalanced, gender-exclusive Building
curriculum. Tutors, Heads and Professional bodies do not acknowledge the different
experiences of women students as a result of androcentric curriculum design and delivery.
Moves towards flexibility and responsiveness in Building higher education suffer the inertia
which Thomas shows to reproduce traditional, male defined disciplines, narrow
specialisation and strong disciplinary boundaries. More reflective practices are limited by
tutors and male students' resistance to acknowledge the essential interrelatedness of science
questions and activity (particularly applied science) and social problems, beliefs and
arrangements (Addelson 1983). Tutors lack knowledge, understanding and therefore
confidence to explore many of these relationships in the curriculum which may, as Kelly
suggests, reinforce gender stereotypes. Nevertheless, some are able to introduce what are
seen as gender-neutral and more mainstream issues, such as environmentalism without
questioning underlying patriarchal assumptions or indeed any other dimensions of power.
	
	Individual staff-female student relationships in Building higher education do not, on the
whole, reflect the negative discourse highlighted by Kelly in school science classroom
interactions. However, women Building students do acknowledge a degree of formality, lack
of support, competitiveness, an impersonal atmosphere and are aware of instances of
dominance and patronising behaviour from tutors and male Building students. It may be,
therefore, that women Building students manage their learning experiences through a system
of identification with particular tutors and students rather than with affinity with
departments and courses as a whole.
	
	Scope for independent learning experiences are increasing, but prescribed, narrow,
quantitative, abstract learning dominates the early part of courses. Women Building
students' ideas, interests and experiences, such as the need for housing for disabled people
in the community, remain unsupported, disregarded and subordinated. Byrne (1991)
suggests this characterises the interests of male science, science teachers and science
students. The lack of opportunity to negotiate pursuance of individual interests within the
curriculum helps to explain women Building students' disillusionment and frustration, and
male Building students' acceptance of the Building curriculum given that the higher education
science curriculum is socially, culturally and historically male-centric (Thomas 1990). 
	
	The traditional narrow technical focus is now being questioned by some in higher
education and the recognition of the value of management and communication skills
challenges the differential valuing of science and Arts subjects. However, the challenge does
not extend to the questioning of fundamental Building values and assumptions which would
entail a challenge to definitions of masculinity and its association with power, objectivity,
control and exploitation as the norm. Women Building student's questioning of the Building
disciplinary culture represents what Thomas would characterise as their different 'world
view'. Separation from personal and social issues results in their relative lack of identity and
satisfaction with the subject. While there is recognition that the dichotomous relationship
between science and arts disciplines and values is false this does not translate into the
cultural valuing of disciplines and the differential valuing of qualities and interests
associated with ideals of masculinity and femininity. Thus, the epistemological character of
Building is, as Becher (1989) illustrates, inextricably linked to the social and cultural norms
of Building practices which are functional, procedure bound, a-theoretical,
production-orientated, uniform, (allegedly) value-free and with restricted knowledge.
	
Impact and evaluation of Building through education

	Heads, professional bodies and tutors see the role of education as encouraging critical
awareness and understanding in graduates and see the possibility of improvements in
industry practices through this process. However, Building students  feel unable critically to
evaluate practices whereas, in comparison, Nursing students feel they are able to do so.
Both male and female Building students show concern for the environmental impact of
Building but tutors do not share the concern to the same extent, one explicitly stating it is
not the concern or responsibility of Builders. The importance of social and human processes
in working practices are recognised by some professions bodies, tutors and students, but
especially by female Building and Nursing students. 
	
	Feminist standpoint theory recognises that women do not uniformly reject Building but
experience it in diverse ways. Likewise 'masculine' and 'feminine' values associated with
experiences of Building are not dichotomised and 'resolvable' but instead suggest the need to
reconceptualise rigid definitions of 'masculine' and 'feminine' values (Sandra Harding 1991).
Cultural practices and structural processes of Building are sanctioned by both men and
women Building students but identification with the social values of Building differs by
gender. Concern for the environmental impact of Building can be characterised as an
empiricist critique of 'bad science'. However, women Building students' concern, and male
Building students' and tutors' lack of concern, for social and human issues in Building,
supports the assertion of women's more radical standpoint of critiqueing 'science-as-usual'.
This 'enlarged vision' (Hartstock 1983) of Building arises from women Building students'
experience of 'outsider status' (Sandra Harding 1991), which enhances their objectivity in
comparison to male Building students' and tutors' limited ability and motive to question
what is seen as the norm. Sandra Harding shows the importance of the redefinition of
objectivity and the contribution of women's 'strong objectivity' to science and technology.
The devaluing of social/human issues in Building may be reinforced by their cultural
association with feminine values and conversely the definition of masculinity in terms of
domination, competition, and dichotomy between self and social other, that is objectivity
(Keller 1989, Tang Halpin 1989, Gross and Avrill 1993). However, Postmodernist feminists
would warn against the universalising of such a perspective to all women. That is, not all
women Building students are concerned with the human/social aspects of Building and
some male students are.
	
	The question still arises: Would an increase in the participation of women change
Building processes, practices and product?  Kirkup and Smith Keller (1992) suggest
women's values can be integrated into science and technology so that Building can be
transformed, as one tutor suggests, but as another argues, change is limited because those
women entering the field share the values of those men in it. By Overfield's (1981) argument
women Building students are participating in the reproduction of part of the patriarchal
system through identification with that esteemed to be male and masculine and pursued for
men's own means. The question must be asked; do women pursue Building for different
means than men? Women Building students do not distance themselves from the origins,
consequences and social values of problematics (for example concern for the quality of the
users experience of the Building), as Sandra Harding (1991) suggests male scientists do. This
can be seen as women's negotiation within existing norms and ideals but it is difficult to see
it, as yet, as engagement in a power struggle which standpoint theorists (Addelson 1983,
Hartstock 1983) would see as challenging existing Building values which separate the social
from the technical. 
	
	More likely, female and male Building students will challenge the abuse and misuse of
Building in terms of environmental impact which, while being accommodated because of
wider environmental movements, does not threaten the traditional culture and norms of
Building which dichotomise social and technical issues. Female (and male) Building students
participating in the Building system may eventually internalise and accept this dichotomy
between social and technical through the reproduction of Building values. Those (males and
females) who problematise such a dichotomy will reject them and not participate in the first
place. 
	
	However, evaluations of Building and Building values illustrates the need to focus the
analysis of women's under-representation, on Building and not on women's behaviour.
Secondly, the analysis of experiences and perspectives of women in Building, through
biography (Fox Keller 1983, Mason 1992), can suggest possibilities in purposes,
expectations, practices and diversity in Building. A recognition of the falsity of objectivity in
Building further illustrates that Building values are socially constructed and not inherent,
opening the way for alternative values to traditional Building culture and definition of
problems.


CONCLUSIONS

	The data provides insight into sources of acceptance, perpetuation and critique of
Building processes, practices and skills through the Building education curriculum. Male and
female Building student perceptions and values relating to evaluations of Building are not
polarised, rather, differences in perceptions are between students and course
designers/deliverers. However, gender differences do arise in terms of priority given to
social/human issues. Recognition of women Building students' different, wider view of
Building problematises Building practices and culture as they currently exist and therefore
questions male monopolised power in technology. Within all groups there is recognition that
the traditional curriculum is overloaded, inflexible and unresponsive, with conservative,
unfriendly teaching and learning strategies, but diversity is slowly being introduced which
students value.

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