Theorizing progress: Women in science, engineering, and technology in higher education

A conceptual framework of positions on women in science, engineering, and t echnology (SET) was developed, showing a chronological progression of the m ain approaches to women's underrepresentation in SET during the past 20 yea rs. Numerous initiatives have been advocated to address women's underrepres entation in SET in higher education. This article arose out of one such ini tiative, Winning Women, which was intended to help higher education in Scot land move toward good practice in this field. Two members of the project te am describe their key findings and experiences. They illustrate how the und errepresentation of women in SET continues to be both progressive and persi stent (using an SET parity index). The conceptual framework was conceived a nd developed from a metaanalysis of feminist theories of the gendered polit ics of science and technology. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.