This project analyzes the experiences of women doctoral students who persist in chemical, civil, electrical and/or mechanical engineering programs. Despite growth in the past two decades, women remain a marginalized group in engineering and the very low percentage of women and women of color earning doctoral degrees remains a particular concern. Previous research in primary and secondary education suggests that hidden curriculum (tacit information and practices) serves to exclude and constrain, but little empirical research focuses on hidden curriculum and higher education.

To address these gaps, I conducted fieldwork at two research universities, consisting of twenty one-on-one interviews and approximately forty hours of participant observation. I find that women in engineering PhD programs are socialized to become graduate students, engineers and researchers; women's gendered experiences are threaded through all three stages. Themes such as social capital and labor and management relationships in engineering reveal engineering's hidden curriculum. Overall, this project generates an explanation of the interplay between education and social, political and economic structures by uncovering the social practices, day to day routines and tacit understandings that often reinforce social divisions and inequities, even as they may offer spaces for resistance. Educators will gain broader and deeper understandings of what pushes women out of engineering, the resources women draw on to persevere and what educators can do to enhance those resources.