The first to systematically compare Caucasians, African Americans, and Asian Americans in engineering, this study of the career attainment and mobility of engineers in the United States tells how these three groups fare in the American engineering labor market and what they can look forward to in the future. The numbers of black and Asian engineers recently have grown at a much faster rate than the number of Caucasian engineers. With a projected steady increase in engineering jobs and demographic shifts, this trend should continue. Yet, recent writings on the engineering profession have said little about career mobility beyond graduation. This book identifies and explores key issues determining whether minorities in the US will attain occupational equality with their Caucasian counterparts. Highlighting implications for theory, policy making, and the future of the profession, Doing Engineering offers important insights into labor, race and ethnicity that will be of interest to anyone studying stratification in a wide range of professional occupations.

Browne (law, Wayne State U.) is a specialist in employment discrimination law who tackles the controversies of the glass ceiling, the gender gap in pay, sexual harassment, and occupational segregation. Drawing on theories and findings from the field of evolutionary biology, he advocates acknowledgment of biological differences between men and women and asserts that these differences must be considered in workplace policy. He feels that gender-blind policies, or those designed to enhance women's opportunities, are generally unfeasible, unfair, and unreasonable in light of what some evolutionary biologists might say. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Do women do science differently? And how about feminists--male or female? The answer to this fraught question, carefully set out in this provocative book, will startle and enlighten every faction in the "science wars." Has Feminism Changed Science? is at once a history of women in science and a frank assessment of the role of gender in shaping scientific knowledge. Science is both a profession and a body of knowledge, and Londa Schiebinger looks at how women have fared and performed in both instances. She first considers the lives of women scientists, past and present: How many are there? What sciences do they choose--or have chosen for them? Is the professional culture of science gendered? And is there something uniquely feminine about the science women do? Schiebinger debunks the myth that women scientists--because they are women--are somehow more holistic and integrative and create more cooperative scientific communities. At the same time, she details the considerable practical difficulties that beset women in science, where domestic partnerships, children, and other demanding concerns can put women's (and increasingly men's) careers at risk. But what about the content of science, the heart of Schiebinger's subject? Have feminist perspectives brought any positive changes to scientific knowledge? Schiebinger provides a subtle and nuanced gender analysis of the physical sciences, medicine, archaeology, evolutionary biology, primatology, and developmental biology. She also shows that feminist scientists have developed new theories, asked new questions, and opened new fields in many of these areas.