My oldest daughter will be graduating high school this year and starting at our flagship university in mechanical engineering in August. She has some dynamite women graduating with her (two heavily involved in the robotics team and also four year Project Lead the Way). Her high school teachers have been very supportive of my daughter even helping her with her college classes (she has taken all of her math, physics, and three engineering courses online). She will start in the fall as a 2nd semester sophomore/1st semester junior.
One great program is Project Lead the Way. My oldest did two years of it (she wished she could have done all four years but it conflicted with her journalism). She learned solid modeling last year and is doing computer integrated machining this year. There is also a Principles class which is equivalent to a freshman engineering survey course (she took the actual university course which is offered online), and a fourth year project course in which the students actually work with industry.
We do not have very many African Americans in my daughter's high school. Our sister community has a high school that is 30% African American, but in the picture of one of their PLTW classes, not a single African American can be seen. This class is available to all students. I do not know how you change the culture to get more involvement. The education is available for those wanting to take advantage of it.
The Robotics competition also develops useful engineering skills. Instead of spending so much on varsity sports, more should be spent to field more teams in this area. The competition is fierce but very sportsmanlike with veteran teams doing their best to help out novice teams.
My daughters' selected college has three support programs that apply to her. Women in Science and Engineering (her dorm assignment, academics, and other social activities), Women in Mechanical Engineering (social and professional), and Society of Women Engineers (social and professional).
What I think happens is some of the very best academic women go into engineering in science, but the next tier academically go off and pursue other occupations such as nursing and teaching. Men on the other hand have representatives from both tiers in engineering. This is what makes it so hard to increase percentages with merit scholarship. The mechanical engineering department sets aside $1,000/yr for women (I don't know if it is all women but just the higher academically performing ones). That is really not an incentive.
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