Title: How Latiné engineering students resist White male engineering culture: A multi‐institution analysis of academic engagement
AbstractBackground
Although participation rates vary by field, Latiné and women engineers continue to be underrepresented across most segments of the engineering workforce. Research has examined engagement and persistence of Latiné and White women in engineering; however, few studies have investigated how race, ethnicity, gender, and institutional setting interact to produce inequities in the field.
Purpose
To address these limitations, we examined how Latina, Latino, and White women and men students' engagement in engineering was informed by their intersecting identities and within their institutional setting over the course of a year.
Method
We interviewed 32 Latina, Latino, and White women and men undergraduate engineering students attending 11 different predominantly White and Hispanic Serving Institutions. Thematic analysis was used to interpret themes from the data.
Results
Our findings illustrate how Latinas, Latinos, and White women developed a strong engineering identity, which was critical to their engagement in engineering. Students' engineering identity was grounded in their perceived fit within engineering culture, sense of purpose for pursuing their degree, and resistance to the dominance of White male culture in engineering. Latinas described unique forms of gendered, racialized marginalization in engineering, whereas Latinas and Latinos highlighted prosocial motivations for completing their degree.
Conclusions
Findings suggest that institutional cultures, norms, and missions are critical to broadening participation of Latinas, Latinos, and White women in engineering. Disrupting White male culture, leveraging Latiné students' cultural wealth, and counter‐framing traditional recruitment pitches for engineering appear to be key in these efforts.
Retaining women and racially minoritized individuals in engineering programs has been a subject of widespread discussion and investigation. While the sense of belonging and its link to retention have been studied based on student characteristics, there is an absence of studies investigating the importance of students' social identities to their sense of belonging in engineering.
Purpose/Hypothesis
This study examines differences in race/ethnic identity centrality, gender identity centrality, and sense of belonging in engineering by subgroups of undergraduate engineering students at Hispanic‐Serving Institutions (HSIs). Subsequently, it examines the extent to which these identity centralities predict a sense of belonging in engineering for each subgroup.
Design/Method
Survey data was collected from 903 Latinx and 452 White undergraduate engineering students from seven HSIs across the continental United States. Multivariate analysis of variance and sequential multivariate linear regression were used to evaluate the research questions.
Results
Latinx students had higher identity centralities but a similar sense of belonging in the engineering community as White students. Latinos and Latinas had an equivalent sense of belonging in engineering, whereas White women were higher than White men. In the full models, race/ethnic identity centrality significantly, and positively predicted a sense of belonging in engineering for Latinos and White women. Gender identity centrality was not a significant predictor of a sense of belonging in engineering for either Latinx or White students.
Conclusions
Race/ethnic and gender identity centrality are differentially important to the sense of belonging in engineering for students at Hispanic‐Serving Institutions based on their group membership at the intersection of race and gender.
Lizandra C. Godwin(
, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)
This work in progress paper focuses on understanding what students in first- year engineering courses understand about who becomes a researcher and if they see themselves as a researcher, or someone who might become a researcher. Specifically, we compare Latinas to other students in this study to explore the origins of differences in later participation. This work has importance and necessity since it has been noted that the national graduation rate for Latinas with a Ph.D. in engineering is very low; only 91 (< 1%) of awardees in 2018- 2019 identified as Latina. Our research investigates the interest of first year engineering students in research, which might illuminate strategies for addressing the underrepresentation of Latinas in national Ph.D. engineering programs. The purpose of this quantitative study is to characterize early perspectives about research, graduate school, and becoming a researcher. A statistical analysis of the results from a cross-sectional survey was completed. A principal component analysis extracted the following constructs: (1) research self-efficacy, (2) engineering research identity, and (3) perceived cultural compatibility. Self-reported demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, college generation, first year on campus) were collected during the survey and used to group respondents during the analysis. The study population includes all students enrolled in a first-year engineering course for the Fall 2022 (n=215) at the University of New Mexico, a public R1, Hispanic- serving institution. The students were from the following engineering disciplines: Chemical & Biological, Civil, Computer Science, Electrical & Computer, Mechanical, and Nuclear. A regression analysis is used to compare Latinas' perceptions and intentions to students who are well-represented (Asian or White men) in engineering. We hypothesize that the constructs examined in this study explain variance in research persistence. This research has significance if we are to attain more diverse faculty for the emerging student population which requires an increase in the number of Latinas graduating with a doctoral degree and continuing into academia.
Pawley, Alice L.(
, Journal of Engineering Education)
AbstractBackground
Women and men of color and White women participate in American engineering education in lower proportions than they represent in the general U.S. population. Much existing engineering education research uses individual‐level (such as psychological) theories to explain this difference. The study reported here instead takes a structural perspective, asking how social relations are coordinated in engineering education.
Purpose
This study explores how the intersection of ruling relations, critical race, and feminist theories can investigate how gender and race are built into engineering education's institutional structure.
Design/Method
This study used interviews collected from 17 women and men of color and White women who were engineering undergraduate students at U.S. universities. The interviews were drawn from a project that takes as its premise that learning from such small numbers of students facilitates analyzing data intersectionally. The primary analysis used narrative methods through repeated readings.
Results
I offer empirically based illustrations of ruling relations in U.S. universities and schools of engineering that unduly impact minoritized populations. These illustrations include discussions of financial aid knowledge, meeting the needs of transfer and Native students, and how schools crafting “the ideal student” as a young, single White male problematically impact minoritized students. The results illustrate how ruling relations structure engineering education in White‐ and male‐dominated ways.
Conclusions
This paper offers questions to help readers consider how ruling relations race and gender their own institutions. In addition, it offers an interpretive, emergent method for interrogating institutional structure and ideas for future work using ruling relations in engineering education research.
African Americans, Latinos/Latinas, and other traditionally underserved ethnic/racial groups are needed for the next generation of engineers, scientists, and STEM educators. Women of color (WOC), in particular, represent a tremendous untapped human capital that could further provide a much-needed diversity of perspective essential to sustain technological advantages and to promote positive academic climate. Recently engineering educators have questioned the STEM community commitment towards increasing the participation of WOC. Indeed, national reports of domestic students studying and completing STEM degrees show marginal improvement in broadening participation with significant lag in engineering, despite the known benefits of diversity. Therefore, more must be done by the STEM community to attract and retain WOC.
For students of color, campus climate issues around race, class, and gender are critical components shaping their higher education learning environment. Research suggests hostile campus climates are associated with students of color leaving STEM fields before graduating. Such barriers can be more pronounced for WOC who often experience a “double bind” of race and gender marginalization when navigating the STEM culture. Therefore, it is important that educators understand experiences of WOC and what is needed to improve students’ experiences in order to minimize the performance gap in key indicators (e.g., retention, achievement, and persistence). We seek to address this STEM need through the guiding research question: “How does the double bind of race and gender impact the experience of women of color in engineering?”
The data reported here is part of a larger, sequential mixed-methods study that is informed by the Womanist and intersectionality theoretical frameworks. For the first time, we introduce the Womanist Identity Attitude scale to engineering education research, which provides an efficient way to understand gender and racial identity development of WOC along with the intersection of identities. Intersectionality provides a means to produce scholarship that investigates the connection between social identity dimensions and educational conditions. Social identity models that adhere to intersectionality concepts acknowledge that multiple oppressed identities have a cumulative, not additive, impact. Although intersectionality is used to understand the experiences of students of color in higher education, few engineering education studies apply an intersectionality framework, particularly for WOC.
After a short pilot study, we anticipate the survey results will generate three outcomes. First, the survey results will show what intersecting identities most impact the experience of WOC in engineering. Second, interview question and potential themes will be created by grouping results into clusters of intersectionality types or exemplars of intersecting identities. Finally, we will generate strategies to overcome the challenge of the double bind for WOC in engineering by examining the context and scope of intersecting identities emphasized by participants in the survey to. Overall, the results presented here will provide the foundation for a larger study that will lead to a deeper understanding of the challenges WOC face in the engineering culture and expose areas to improve inclusion efforts that target WOC.
Cross, Kelly J.; Clancy, Kathryn B.H.; Mendenhall, Ruby; Imoukhuede, Princess; Amos, Jennifer R.(
, Proceedings – American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition (ASEE), Columbus, OH. June 24-28, 2017)
African Americans, Latinos/Latinas, and other traditionally underserved ethnic/racial groups are needed for the next generation of engineers, scientists, and STEM educators. Women of color (WOC), in particular, represent a tremendous untapped human capital that could further provide a much-needed diversity of perspective essential to sustain technological advantages and to promote positive academic climate. Recently engineering educators have questioned the STEM community commitment towards increasing the participation of WOC. Indeed, national reports of domestic students studying and completing STEM degrees show marginal improvement in broadening participation with significant lag in engineering, despite the known benefits of diversity. Therefore, more must be done by the STEM community to attract and retain WOC.
For students of color, campus climate issues around race, class, and gender are critical components shaping their higher education learning environment. Research suggests hostile campus climates are associated with students of color leaving STEM fields before graduating. Such barriers can be more pronounced for WOC who often experience a “double bind” of race and gender marginalization when navigating the STEM culture. Therefore, it is important that educators understand experiences of WOC and what is needed to improve students’ experiences in order to minimize the performance gap in key indicators (e.g., retention, achievement, and persistence). We seek to address this STEM need through the guiding research question: “How does the double bind of race and gender impact the experience of women of color in engineering?”
The data reported here is part of a larger, sequential mixed-methods study that is informed by the Womanist and intersectionality theoretical frameworks. For the first time, we introduce the Womanist Identity Attitude scale to engineering education research, which provides an efficient way to understand gender and racial identity development of WOC along with the intersection of identities. Intersectionality provides a means to produce scholarship that investigates the connection between social identity dimensions and educational conditions. Social identity models that adhere to intersectionality concepts acknowledge that multiple oppressed identities have a cumulative, not additive, impact. Although intersectionality is used to understand the experiences of students of color in higher education, few engineering education studies apply an intersectionality framework, particularly for WOC.
After a short pilot study, we anticipate the survey results will generate three outcomes. First, the survey results will show what intersecting identities most impact the experience of WOC in engineering. Second, interview question and potential themes will be created by grouping results into clusters of intersectionality types or exemplars of intersecting identities. Finally, we will generate strategies to overcome the challenge of the double bind for WOC in engineering by examining the context and scope of intersecting identities emphasized by participants in the survey to. Overall, the results presented here will provide the foundation for a larger study that will lead to a deeper understanding of the challenges WOC face in the engineering culture and expose areas to improve inclusion efforts that target WOC.
Garriott, Patton O., Carrero Pinedo, Ayli, Hunt, Heather K., Navarro, Rachel L., Flores, Lisa Y., Desjarlais, Cerynn D., Diaz, David, Brionez, Julio, Lee, Bo Hyun, Ayala, Evelyn, Martinez, Leticia D., Hu, Xiaotian, Smith, Megan K., Suh, Han Na, and McGillen, Gloria G. How Latiné engineering students resist White male engineering culture: A multi‐institution analysis of academic engagement. Journal of Engineering Education 112.3 Web. doi:10.1002/jee.20536.
Garriott, Patton O., Carrero Pinedo, Ayli, Hunt, Heather K., Navarro, Rachel L., Flores, Lisa Y., Desjarlais, Cerynn D., Diaz, David, Brionez, Julio, Lee, Bo Hyun, Ayala, Evelyn, Martinez, Leticia D., Hu, Xiaotian, Smith, Megan K., Suh, Han Na, & McGillen, Gloria G. How Latiné engineering students resist White male engineering culture: A multi‐institution analysis of academic engagement. Journal of Engineering Education, 112 (3). https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20536
Garriott, Patton O., Carrero Pinedo, Ayli, Hunt, Heather K., Navarro, Rachel L., Flores, Lisa Y., Desjarlais, Cerynn D., Diaz, David, Brionez, Julio, Lee, Bo Hyun, Ayala, Evelyn, Martinez, Leticia D., Hu, Xiaotian, Smith, Megan K., Suh, Han Na, and McGillen, Gloria G.
"How Latiné engineering students resist White male engineering culture: A multi‐institution analysis of academic engagement". Journal of Engineering Education 112 (3). Country unknown/Code not available: Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons). https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20536.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10423129.
@article{osti_10423129,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {How Latiné engineering students resist White male engineering culture: A multi‐institution analysis of academic engagement},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10423129},
DOI = {10.1002/jee.20536},
abstractNote = {Abstract BackgroundAlthough participation rates vary by field, Latiné and women engineers continue to be underrepresented across most segments of the engineering workforce. Research has examined engagement and persistence of Latiné and White women in engineering; however, few studies have investigated how race, ethnicity, gender, and institutional setting interact to produce inequities in the field. PurposeTo address these limitations, we examined how Latina, Latino, and White women and men students' engagement in engineering was informed by their intersecting identities and within their institutional setting over the course of a year. MethodWe interviewed 32 Latina, Latino, and White women and men undergraduate engineering students attending 11 different predominantly White and Hispanic Serving Institutions. Thematic analysis was used to interpret themes from the data. ResultsOur findings illustrate how Latinas, Latinos, and White women developed a strong engineering identity, which was critical to their engagement in engineering. Students' engineering identity was grounded in their perceived fit within engineering culture, sense of purpose for pursuing their degree, and resistance to the dominance of White male culture in engineering. Latinas described unique forms of gendered, racialized marginalization in engineering, whereas Latinas and Latinos highlighted prosocial motivations for completing their degree. ConclusionsFindings suggest that institutional cultures, norms, and missions are critical to broadening participation of Latinas, Latinos, and White women in engineering. Disrupting White male culture, leveraging Latiné students' cultural wealth, and counter‐framing traditional recruitment pitches for engineering appear to be key in these efforts.},
journal = {Journal of Engineering Education},
volume = {112},
number = {3},
publisher = {Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)},
author = {Garriott, Patton O. and Carrero Pinedo, Ayli and Hunt, Heather K. and Navarro, Rachel L. and Flores, Lisa Y. and Desjarlais, Cerynn D. and Diaz, David and Brionez, Julio and Lee, Bo Hyun and Ayala, Evelyn and Martinez, Leticia D. and Hu, Xiaotian and Smith, Megan K. and Suh, Han Na and McGillen, Gloria G.},
}
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