Becoming engineers over time: longitudinal narratives of educationally disadvantaged chemical engineering students in South Africa

Abstract

Research in engineering education has increasingly focused on widening participation and addressing educational disadvantage, yet much of this work relies on short-term, institutionally defined indicators of success, such as time-to-degree completion and immediate graduate employment. As a result, limited attention has been given to how educationally disadvantaged students navigate structural constraints and exercise agency over extended periods, particularly beyond graduation. This paper addresses this gap through a longitudinal narrative study of three chemical engineering students in South Africa, drawing on findings from a published PhD that used interview data collected during the participants’ undergraduate studies in 2011, and follow-up interviews conducted 13 years later. Using Margaret Archer’s structure-agency framework, the study traces how participants’ educational and early-career trajectories unfolded across higher education and into professional practice. The findings show that entry into engineering was shaped less by commitment to the profession than by broader personal projects related to economic security, family responsibility, and upward mobility. None of the participants followed linear pathways; instead, their trajectories involved delay, exclusion, re-entry, and redirection. The transition from university to work emerged as a particularly fragile phase, shaped by unequal access to opportunities, informal networks, and precarious workplace conditions. Over time, participants reconfigured their agency through persistence, strategic action, and shifts in professional identity. The study demonstrates that becoming an engineer is a long-term, negotiated process. It challenges dominant linear notions of success, and highlights the need for policy and institutional approaches that recognise and support diverse, non-linear pathways into engineering practice.