From Students to Educators: A Qualitative Interview Study of Female Faculty Perspectives on Gender Equality in Technology Higher Education

To explore why women remain underrepresented in the technological sector despite longitudinal initiatives toward gender equality, this qualitative study examines perspectives from 15 female faculty members across eight countries. Participants are women who have navigated this landscape twice: first as technology students, and now as faculty who observe, teach, and influence the next generation. Through grounded theory analysis, the study captured both changes in attitudes towards technology careers across different life stages and the role of faculty in promoting inclusive change. The dual perspective and cross-cultural analysis from Finland, Jordan, Malaysia, India, Kenya, Spain, Namibia, and the Netherlands revealed unique insights contributing to existing gender-inclusivity discussions. The findings align with Social Cognitive Career Theory but extend it: career decision-making is seen as a continuous, experience-based process throughout life, not just a threshold event in adolescence. To ensure that female experiences foster positive attitudes toward technology, universities need to take systemic actions to create a comfortable learning environment. These actions should start with providing faculty training on inclusivity, as interviews revealed low faculty awareness of classroom-level practices. The multicultural perspective also showed that while gender perceptions varied across regions, they differed from field to field. This led to the conclusion that it is not industries that are gendered, but rather the image of them, which suggests promoting technology from a new, inclusive angle, especially in countries with high structural equality, where interviewees appeared less tolerant of potentially hostile environments and tended to avoid them.