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1. A Tale of Two Universities: An Intersectional Approach to Examining Microaggressions Amongst Undergraduate Engineering Students at an HBCU and a PWI

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34072  

   Berger, M (June 2020, ASEE 2020)

   null (Ed.)

   The current study utilized the intersectionality theory to analyze microaggressions towards engineering undergraduate underrepresented gender and racial minority students. In this study, participants were sampled from intersecting identity groups (Asian female, Asian male, Black female, Black male, Hispanic female, Hispanic male, White female) at two institutional settings: 1) a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) and 2) a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). The study’s analysis examined microaggressions in the context of undergraduate engineering programs at both sites, an HBCU and a PWI. The results suggested that a higher frequency of microaggressions took place at the PWI than the HBCU. The most frequently identified microaggressions included disjointed race and gender dialogue, hidden language, projected stereotypes, an ascription of intelligence, silence, and marginalization. The paper aims to increase awareness of the prevalence and varying types of microaggressions experienced between the sites. These results may influence policies and educational practices to meet the needs of underrepresented minority students in engineering. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. (1828172 and 1828559). “Collaborative Research: An Intersectional Perspective to Studying Microaggressions in Engineering Programs”. 

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2. Balancing Research and Service in Academia: Gender, Race, and Laboratory Tasks

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243219867917  

   Miller, Candace; Roksa, Josipa (February 2020, Gender & Society)

   Our study highlights specific ways in which race and gender create inequality in the workplace. Using in-depth interviews with 67 biology PhD students, we show how engagement with research and service varies by both gender and race. By considering the intersection between gender and race, we find not only that women biology graduate students do more service than men, but also that racial and ethnic minority men do more service than white men. White men benefit from a combination of racial and gender privilege, which places them in the most advantaged position with respect to protected research time and opportunities to build collaborations and networks beyond their labs. Racial/ethnic minority women emerge as uniquely disadvantaged in terms of their experiences relative to other groups. These findings illuminate how gendered organizations are also racialized, producing distinct experiences for women and men from different racial groups, and thus contribute to theorizing the intersectional nature of inequality in the workplace. 

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3. Finding Meaning in Makerspaces: Exploring How Gender Influences Makerspace Definition Among First-Year Engineering Students

   Bushra, J.; Budinoff, H.D.; Shivers-McNair, A.; Berger, E. (June 2024, ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Makerspaces, intended for open and collaborative learning, often struggle to attract a diverse group of users, particularly concerning gender diversity. These issues include makerspaces becoming associated primarily with white male students, gendered connotations of machines and materials, and women’s perceived lack of self-efficacy in using makerspace tools. As a result, women may view makerspaces as unwelcoming, and societal stereotypes can affect their engagement in these spaces. Efforts to create more inclusive makerspaces are essential to fully realize the potential of makerspaces, encourage and boost confidence in marginalized groups to pursue careers in different engineering areas, and promote a diverse and collaborative maker culture. Moreover, defining makerspaces is challenging due to conflicting perceptions, the uniqueness of spaces, and the abstract elements in these environments, revealing a gap between academic definitions and the diverse voices of people interested in utilizing makerspaces. Our goal is to see if there are differences in the fundamental academic makerspace definition and makerspace definition by different genders, providing insights into how inclusive our makerspace is. We focus on gender because our interviewees focused more on gender than other identity markers in our conversations, but we also report additional demographic data that likely impacted participants’ experiences, namely, their racial and ethnic identities. Our corpus is drawn from semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in an introductory first-year engineering course. Out of 28 students interviewed, 10 identified as women, 16 as men, one as both women and questioning or unsure, and one as women and nonbinary and transgender. In terms of racial/ethnic identifications, nine participants identified as White or Caucasian; six identified as Latinx or Hispanic; five identified as Latinx or Hispanic, White or Caucasian; three identified as Black or African American; two identified as Asian, Desi, or Asian American; one identified as Latinx or Hispanic, Native American or Alaska Native; one identified as Southwest Asian, Middle Eastern, or North African, White or Caucasian; and one identified as Native African. In this ongoing study, from interview transcripts, we extracted participant responses to questions regarding their definitions of and impressions of makerspaces to identify commonalities and differences. Specifically, we use natural language processing techniques to extract word frequency and centrality and synthesize commonalities into a shared definition of a makerspace. We also separated responses from participants by gender identities to evaluate how definitions varied with gender. These emergent definitions are compared with commonly accepted definitions derived from research papers. Additionally, we conduct a complementary discourse analysis of students’ definitions and impressions of makerspaces, qualitatively examining how diverse students characterize ways of being and doing in the makerspace. 

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4. Persistence of African American Females in Engineering: The Mathematics Identity Factor.

   McKoy, T.L.; Beane, C.D.; Oyeteju, M.O.; Hammond, M.S.; Hargrove, S.K (January 2020, Urban education research and policy annuals)

   null (Ed.)

   To continue as global science and technological leaders, the United States is motivated to create a diverse, engineering workforce. One way of diversifying the engineering workforce is to address the disparity of women engineers. Although concerted efforts to improve retention rates of women in engineering are ongoing, women have earned only 5.6% of all undergraduate engineering degrees, with only 1% attributed to African American women (NSF, 2015b). African American women are commonly included in racial or gender-focused studies on persistence; however, few studies assess the effect of multiple identities to persistence. This exploratory study examined the relationship of persistence, measured by intent to persist, to multiple identities (social, professional, and racial) of African American female engineering students. Forward regression analyses were conducted and results indicated that the participant’s mathematical identities were more salient to them than their racial or gender identities. Also, the values these women placed on being an engineer and belonging to the group were principal aspects of their professional identity. Additionally, negative affect and stereotype threat were found significant predictors of intent to persist. 

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5. Who is a typical woman? Exploring variation in how race biases representations of gender across development

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13175  

   Leshin, Rachel A.; Lei, Ryan F.; Byrne, Magnolia; Rhodes, Marjorie (September 2021, Developmental Science)

   Abstract From early in development, race biases how children think about gender—often in a manner that treats Black women as less typical and representative ofwomen in generalthan White or Asian women. The present study (N = 89, ages 7–11; predominately Hispanic, White, and multi‐racial children) examined the generalizability of this phenomenon across middle childhood and the mechanisms underlying variability in its development. Replicating prior work, children were slower and less accurate to categorize the gender of Black women compared to Asian or White women, as well as compared to Black men, suggesting that children perceived Black women as less representative of their gender. These effects were robust across age within a racially and ethnically diverse sample of children. Children's tendencies to view their own racial identities as expansive and flexible, however, attenuated these effects: Children with more flexible racial identities also had gender concepts that were more inclusive of Black women. In contrast, the tendency for race to bias children's gender representations was unrelated to children's multiple classification skill and racial essentialism. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying variation in how race biases gender across development, with critical implications for how children's own identities shape the development of intergroup cognition and behavior. 

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