Gender, architectural education, and the accruing of capital

Abstract

This chapter traces some of the reasons for lack of equal gender progression. It does so through analysis of the relationship between gender and architectural education, from entry to graduation, in order to reveal how the performativity of gender at university influences an individual's prospects to acquire optimal social, cultural, and economic capital in their post-university working life. In the United Kingdom and United States women are now undertaking a vocational architectural education at university at a rate mostly equal to or greater than men. While architecture schools undertake their own internal assessments on gender split and recruitment, there has been negligible academic research done to assess how a prospective student's gender influences their being offered a place or not. While architecture is considered a creative, gender-neutral profession, a gender split in students and educators occurs through the performativity of gender enacted through a 'hidden curriculum'.