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1. The Complexity of Nonbinary Gender Inclusion in Engineering Culture

   Haverkamp, A. (June 2018, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Gender in engineering is a long-standing source of inquiry, research, outreach, and discussion as inequity in demographics and negative experiences persist in the field. Women consist of just approximately 20% of our engineering undergraduate programs nationally, and roughly 14% of our national professional workforce. Absent from these numbers and research into gender minority experiences are students who lay further on the margins of discussion, awareness, inclusion, and acknowledgement of existence - students who identify as nonbinary or other genders aside from man or woman. This paper presents background literature on gender, gender minority experiences in higher education, nonbinary gender identity, and aims to present points of discussion to facilitate further engagement with a more nuanced understanding of gender in engineering. Gender as a social system is defined by multiplicity and fluidity and does not fit within two unitary and discrete categories. The majority of current gender in engineering scholarship utilizes a conceptualization of gender which does not acknowledge or incorporate more than two gender options, and is rooted in increasingly rejected notions of biological essentialism. Nonbinary and gender nonconforming students, some of which also identify within the transgender population, exist in liminal spaces throughout society and higher education, and continuation of this scholarship tacitly denies their existence by framing gender as intrinsically linked to two biological categories. Engineering professionals, faculty, and students who identify as neither men nor women must be included and our conversation be expanded for academically rigorous investigation into gender dynamics and create inclusive engineering spaces. Conversations around gender neutral bathrooms are just the beginnings of widespread cultural change to support gender expansive engineers. The discipline must re-think our approaches towards gender equity in engineering and the theoretical conceptualization of gender to not only frame its inequity through the sharp underrepresentation of women, but its gender dynamics as experienced by nonbinary and gender nonconforming students. We must continue to make space for marginalized gender identities and gendered experiences. Through reviewing existing literature and integrating my own intimate experiences I seek to discuss preliminary efforts towards nonbinary inclusion in our teaching, professionalization, and language. This paper represents a point of entry for discussing nonbinary inclusion as part of the discipline's continued commitment to cultural change surrounding gender. 

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2. Nonbinary Engineering Students’ Access to Resources Through Cis* and Trans* Alters

   Gentry, Adrian N; Martin, Julie P; Douglas, Kerrie A; Holloway, Eric; Thompson, Cole (June 2024, ASEE PEER)

   Background Nonbinary engineering students (i.e., engineering students that identify as outside of the gender binary) must navigate a cis- and heteronormative society, in addition to a male dominated engineering culture. Nonbinary students in higher education report high levels of minority threat, lower levels of persistence than cisgender peers and lessened feelings of belonging. One avenue for supporting nonbinary students’ persistence in engineering is to increase understanding of the types of individuals that support nonbinary students and the supports available to nonbinary engineering students. For this study, we are utilizing social capital theory and Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework to explore the supports nonbinary engineering students access through their social networks and how those supports impact persistence. Social capital, the resources embedded into social relationships, has been used as both an indicator and outcome in relation to students’ well-being, belonging, academic success, and persistence. Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework brings greater meaning to the value of transgender and cisgender alters in a nonbinary engineers’ network. Specifically, how cisgender alters witness a nonbinary person’s identity as an outsider to gender nonconformity and how transgender alters mirror a nonbinary person’s experience as an insider to gender nonconformity. Purpose: The purpose of this work in progress is to identify supports that are impactful on nonbinary engineering students’ persistence in their majors and careers. Specifically, we ask the questions: 1) What supports do alters, of differing genders, provide that witness and mirror nonbinary engineers; 2) to what extent are supports provided by alters impactful on students' success in their majors and careers? Methodology/approach: We purposely selected 4 nonbinary engineering students to interview from a larger study on engineering students’ social capital and professional skills. Nonbinary engineering students were asked about their experiences of being nonbinary in engineering spaces, the support they received from cisgender and transgender alters and the impact of that support on their persistence in engineering. We analyzed the themes in the interviews by coding the alters mentioned, the types of supports provided (mirroring, witnessing, expressive and instrumental) and the impact of supports on persistence. Future Work and Implications: The finding of this study will contribute to a greater understanding of the social capital and social networks of nonbinary students, as there is dearth of research on their experiences in engineering spaces. This work can guide our understanding of the supports that nonbinary engineering students have available to them and perhaps more importantly, the supports they do not have available to them. The findings from this study will be used to inform organizational and institutional policies to support engineering students in accessing more social capital. 

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3. Nonbinary Engineering Students’ Access to Resources Through Cis* and Trans* Alters

   Gentry, Adrian N; Martin, Julie P; Douglas, Kerrie A; Holloway, Eric; Thompson, Cole (June 2024, ASEE PEER)

   Background Nonbinary engineering students (i.e., engineering students that identify as outside of the gender binary) must navigate a cis- and heteronormative society, in addition to a male dominated engineering culture. Nonbinary students in higher education report high levels of minority threat, lower levels of persistence than cisgender peers and lessened feelings of belonging. One avenue for supporting nonbinary students’ persistence in engineering is to increase understanding of the types of individuals that support nonbinary students and the supports available to nonbinary engineering students. For this study, we are utilizing social capital theory and Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework to explore the supports nonbinary engineering students access through their social networks and how those supports impact persistence. Social capital, the resources embedded into social relationships, has been used as both an indicator and outcome in relation to students’ well-being, belonging, academic success, and persistence. Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework brings greater meaning to the value of transgender and cisgender alters in a nonbinary engineers’ network. Specifically, how cisgender alters witness a nonbinary person’s identity as an outsider to gender nonconformity and how transgender alters mirror a nonbinary person’s experience as an insider to gender nonconformity. Purpose: The purpose of this work in progress is to identify supports that are impactful on nonbinary engineering students’ persistence in their majors and careers. Specifically, we ask the questions: 1) What supports do alters, of differing genders, provide that witness and mirror nonbinary engineers; 2) to what extent are supports provided by alters impactful on students' success in their majors and careers? Methodology/approach: We purposely selected 4 nonbinary engineering students to interview from a larger study on engineering students’ social capital and professional skills. Nonbinary engineering students were asked about their experiences of being nonbinary in engineering spaces, the support they received from cisgender and transgender alters and the impact of that support on their persistence in engineering. We analyzed the themes in the interviews by coding the alters mentioned, the types of supports provided (mirroring, witnessing, expressive and instrumental) and the impact of supports on persistence. Future Work and Implications: The finding of this study will contribute to a greater understanding of the social capital and social networks of nonbinary students, as there is dearth of research on their experiences in engineering spaces. This work can guide our understanding of the supports that nonbinary engineering students have available to them and perhaps more importantly, the supports they do not have available to them. The findings from this study will be used to inform organizational and institutional policies to support engineering students in accessing more social capital. 

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4. Nonbinary Engineering Students’ Access to Resources Through Cis* and Trans* Alters

   Gentry, Adrian N; Martin, Julie P; Douglas, Kerrie A; Holloway, Eric; Thompson, Coleman (June 2024, ASEE Peer)

   Background Nonbinary engineering students (i.e., engineering students that identify as outside of the gender binary) must navigate a cis- and heteronormative society, in addition to a male dominated engineering culture. Nonbinary students in higher education report high levels of minority threat, lower levels of persistence than cisgender peers and lessened feelings of belonging. One avenue for supporting nonbinary students’ persistence in engineering is to increase understanding of the types of individuals that support nonbinary students and the supports available to nonbinary engineering students. For this study, we are utilizing social capital theory and Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework to explore the supports nonbinary engineering students access through their social networks and how those supports impact persistence. Social capital, the resources embedded into social relationships, has been used as both an indicator and outcome in relation to students’ well-being, belonging, academic success, and persistence. Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework brings greater meaning to the value of transgender and cisgender alters in a nonbinary engineers’ network. Specifically, how cisgender alters witness a nonbinary person’s identity as an outsider to gender nonconformity and how transgender alters mirror a nonbinary person’s experience as an insider to gender nonconformity. Purpose The purpose of this work in progress is to identify supports that are impactful on nonbinary engineering students’ persistence in their majors and careers. Specifically, we ask the questions: 1) What supports do alters, of differing genders, provide that witness and mirror nonbinary engineers; 2) to what extent are supports provided by alters impactful on students' success in their majors and careers? Methodology/approach We purposely selected 4 nonbinary engineering students to interview from a larger study on engineering students’ social capital and professional skills. Nonbinary engineering students were asked about their experiences of being nonbinary in engineering spaces, the support they received from cisgender and transgender alters and the impact of that support on their persistence in engineering. We analyzed the themes in the interviews by coding the alters mentioned, the types of supports provided (mirroring, witnessing, expressive and instrumental) and the impact of supports on persistence. Future Work & Implications The finding of this study will contribute to a greater understanding of the social capital and social networks of nonbinary students, as there is dearth of research on their experiences in engineering spaces. This work can guide our understanding of the supports that nonbinary engineering students have available to them and perhaps more importantly, the supports they do not have available to them. The findings from this study will be used to inform organizational and institutional policies to support engineering students in accessing more social capital. 

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5. The Diversity-Hire Narrative in CS: Sources, Impacts, and Responses

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630945  

   Perdriau, Christopher; Ojha, Vidushi; Gray, Kaitlynn; Lagesse, Brent; Lewis, Colleen M. (March 2024, ACM)

   Background : Affirmative action programs (AAPs) aim to increase the representation of people from historically underrepresented groups (HUGs) in the workforce, but can unintentionally signal that a person from a HUG was selected for their identity rather than their merit. We call this signal the diversity-hire narrative. Prior work has found that women hear the diversity-hire narrative during their computer science (CS) internships, but women and non-binary students' experiences surrounding the narrative are important to understand and have not been thoroughly explored. Objectives: We seek to understand the (1) sources and (2) impacts of this narrative, as well as (3) how students respond to it. Methods: We conducted and qualitatively analyzed 23 semi-structured interviews with undergraduate CS students in the gender minority (i.e., students who identify as women or non-binary). Results : Participants reported hearing the diversity-hire narrative from family and peers. They reported feeling self-doubt and a double standard where their success was not attributed to their intelligence, but their peers' success was. Participants responded to the diversity-hire narrative by (1) ignoring it, (2) attempting to prove themselves, (3) stating that their peers are jealous, (4) explaining that AAPs address inequity, and (5) explaining that everyone is held to a high standard. Implications: These results expand our understanding of the experiences that likely impact undergraduate CS students in the gender minority. This is important for broadening participation in computing because results indicate that students in the gender minority often encounter the diversity-hire narrative, which deprives them of recognition by invalidating their hard work. 

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