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1. Comprehending multiple identities as minoritized students in engineering: How can diverse developmental networks grow meaning‐making capacity?

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.70008  

   Ghosh, Rajashi; Montgomery, Alene (July 2025, Journal of Engineering Education)

   Abstract BackgroundMentoring is an important developmental relationship that can positively impact student growth, specifically, students' capacity to make sense of their own selves through addressing any possible incongruence between their social identities and emerging professional identity as engineers. This need is even more pronounced for students who have one or more identities that are minoritized in the field of engineering. PurposeAlthough prior literature has reported mentoring to have contributed to students' professional identity development as engineers, we lack an understanding of how multiple developers in students' developmental networks can offer complementary support. To address this gap, we sought to understand how diverse developers in students' networks enabled them to filter stereotypes that make their minoritized social identities incongruent with their evolving engineering identity. Design/MethodsWe used an idiographic case study methodology and paired interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with intersectionality to analyze data from 10 undergraduate minoritized engineering students. ResultsWe offer three cases in this paper to illustrate minoritized students experiences at the intersections of their identities and how different developers offered three types of holding behaviors (e.g., empathic acknowledgment/confirmation, enabling perspective/contradiction, containment/continuity) that enabled the student mentees to grow their meaning‐making capacity (from formulaic to foundational) so that they could align their social identities with their emerging professional identity as engineers. ConclusionWe conclude the paper with a discussion of both research and practice implications about utilizing diverse developmental networks for growing students' meaning‐making capacities needed for them to better comprehend their multiple identities. 

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2. Characterizing Student Identities in Engineering: Attitudinal Profiles of Engineering Majors

   Benson, L.; Potvin, G.; Kirn, A.; Godwin, A.; Doyle, J.; Rohde, J.A.; Verdín, D.; Boone, H. (June 2017, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   https://peer.asee.org/27950 This paper presents results of work completed on our project, Intersectionality of Non-normative Identities in the Cultures of Engineering (InIce). The overarching focus of this project is on how students who hold non-normative identities position themselves, grow through their education, and navigate the cultures of engineering they experience in college. Our goal is to investigate ways to engage students who hold non-normative identities to become more active and lifelong participants in engineering disciplines. Our work is proceeding in three phases: 1) Identify, through a quantitative instrument, the attitudinal profiles of normative and non-normative students in engineering; 2) Characterize students’ normative and non-normative identities through in-depth interviews and analysis of differences between students with normative and non-normative identities in engineering; and 3) Drawing from our findings, develop a workshop and set of courses to incorporate diversity topics into engineering programs to enhance the culture of engineering to be more responsive towards, and inclusive of, a diverse range of student identities. We have completed the first phase of the project in which we quantitatively measured and characterized student groups with normative and non-normative identities in engineering. Our definitions of normative and non-normative for this project are developed through Topological Data Analysis (TDA) of a set of multi-institution survey data (n = 2916). TDA allows identification of groups without imposing a priori hypotheses on how the attitudes of students may group together (nor how they may distinguish between demographic groups). This approach allows the underlying structure of the data to emerge rather than imposing pre-defined definitions of normative attitudes or identities. Our TDA results revealed one group that contains a relatively large number of students (the “normative” group) and a total of seven other distinct, but relatively populated, groups (the “non-normative” groups). We have compiled a summary of the most salient attitudinal constructs in terms of characterizing and distinguishing between all these groups including: motivation (value, goal orientation, future time perspective), engineering and physics identities (performance/competence and recognition beliefs for each), personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, belongingness) and grit (consistency of interest). We are currently in Phase 2 of our study in which we are conducting a series of qualitative, longitudinal interviews with students selected from normative and non-normative groups to understand how they navigate their engineering experiences and define their educational trajectories over the first two years of college. This data will be deductively analyzed based on our existing attitudinal frameworks as well as inductively coded for emerging themes on how students feel belongingness within engineering culture. This project promises to move traditional measures of demographic data beyond socially constructed perceptions of others and allows for the representation of student diversity from the perspective of each participant. This more accurate reflection of diversity provides novel insight into the experiences of students who might otherwise be ignored or unjustifiably lumped in with other students with whom they share some demographic indicator and how residing at the intersection of multiple measures of diversity can influence students’ experiences in engineering culture. 

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3. A Preliminary Analysis of Identity Development in the Figured Worlds of High-Achieving, Low-Income Engineering Students

   Cogburn, B. (July 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The ongoing lack of diversity in STEM fields has been described as both: a) a critical issue with a detrimental impact on the United States’ ability to compete with global innovation (Chen, 2013) and b) a systemic issue that excludes certain groups of people from opportunities for economic mobility and job security (Wait & McDonald, 2019). Historically excluded groups, such as women, Black/African Americans, Latin Americans, and economically disadvantaged individuals, continue to be in the minority in STEM (Carnevale et al., 2021). Through the years of research on historically excluded groups, researchers have asserted the importance of developing an engineering identity in determining later success in engineering (Allen & Eisenhart, 2017; Kang et al., 2019; Stipanovic & Woo, 2017). With only 8% of all engineering students entering higher education from low income backgrounds (NCES, 2016; Major et. al, 2018), these students often face significant barriers to their success (Chen, 2013; Hoxby & Avery, 2012), yet there has been very little attention given to them in the research historically. Our study seeks to address the gap related to this population and support the developing understanding of how high achieving, low income students form an engineering identity, as well as the intersectionality and salience of their other socio-cultural identities. Using the theoretical framework of figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998; Waide-James & Schwartz, 2019), we sought to explore what factors shaped the formation of an engineering identity for high achieving, low income college students participating in an engineering scholarship program. Specifically, our research questions were: 1) What factors shape the formation of engineering identity for high achieving, low income students participating in an engineering scholarship program? and 2) How salient are other social identities in the formation of their engineering identity? A constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) design guided our selection of individual interviews and focus groups as data collection tools, allowing us to tailor our interview questions and shape our programming around the needs of participants. NSF SSTEM-sponsored program activities that could shape the figured world of participants included intentional mentoring, cohort-based seminars, targeted coursework in design courses, and connecting students to internships and co-ops. Emerging themes for our preliminary data analysis reveal the importance of peer relationships, professional mentorship, and cultural wealth, including social capital. Preliminary results from this study have the potential to increase understanding of how to best support the success of high achieving, low income college students in engineering programs, including the implementation of targeted interventions and supports, as well as shed further light on the skills they use to overcome systemic barriers. 

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4. "I’ve felt out of place sometimes in STEM but my cultural roots say otherwise:” Latina college students’ identity conundrums and opportunities in a science research internship

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-023-10198-9  

   Batres_Spezza, Stephanie; Varelas, Maria; Ashley, Mary V; Batista, Desiree (December 2023, Cultural Studies of Science Education)

   In this study, we explored (a) how Latina undergraduate students negotiated their multiple identities while participating in a research internship designed to create spaces that counter master narratives, and the forms of cultural wealth that were implicated in these identity negotiations, and (b) ways in which the various elements of the research internship impacted the student’s identity negotiations. The theoretical framing brought together conceptions of identity and identity construction, the marginalization of Latin*s in science and science education and the master narratives shaping identity intersectionalities, and the creation of counter narratives that make use of multiple forms of community cultural wealth. Using phenomenology, we analyzed four Latina interns’ work artifacts generated in various activities within each element of the research internship that aimed to provide Latin* students with opportunities to explore and build on their cultural assets while studying the monarch butterfly population in relation to milkweed restoration and utilization. We found that the research interns referred to different forms of cultural wealth as they grappled with their multiple identities and their intersectionalities, and the various science research internship elements offered different pathways for their grappling. The findings point to (a) structures at the macro- and micro-levels, and enduring master narratives and distal identities, that influence proximal identities and are implicated in identity conundrums; (b) the role of cultural wealth in creating productive spaces and places of science engagement and counter narratives; and (c) the explicitness needed in educational activities so that science students may engage with the intersectionalities of their multiple identities. 

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5. Minoritized Student Audio Narratives to Influence Faculty’s Empathic Understanding: Learning from Sophie and Enola

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--45461  

   Secules, Stephen; Kali, Maimuna Begum; McCall, Cassandra; Van_Dyke, Gabriel (February 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   Background: Undergraduate engineering education is a critical moment for student experiences and broadening participation, yet many minoritized students experience it as unwelcoming, unsupportive, or exclusionary. Engineering faculty have a central role and responsibility to play in the creation of inclusive classrooms, yet there is a gap in empathic communication for faculty to better understand their students. Education researchers can play a critical role in addressing this communication and empathy gap, but disseminating research findings in long form papers is not accessible for most engineering faculty. Purpose: This paper highlights the audio narratives created through the Audio for Inclusion project, an NSF-funded project intended to help faculty become more aware of students’ hidden and marginalized identities and impacts of those identities on their engineering education experiences. Method: We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 nationally recruited undergraduate engineering students and turned these into 10 distinct audio narratives. Our narrative analysis focused on constructing a cohesive, concise, and anonymized narrative that would present key content from student interviews in a format that would preserve some of the immediacy and emotionality of student interviews while improving accessibility and coherence for faculty. Findings: In this paper, we present the scripts and link to audio narratives for two student participants: 1) Sophie, a mixed race (Asian and white) white-passing woman, and 2) Enola, an Indigenous woman. In addition to presenting the written and audio narrative, we comment on the specific lessons we see as valuable for engineering faculty that emerge from each of the audio narratives. Conclusion: This project highlights lessons learned for faculty in the areas of student support, accommodations, inclusive practice, and student perceptions of classroom practice. We present this project as methodological innovation for qualitative research, and as future work, we intend to keep investigating impact on faculty via faculty focus groups, surveys, and workshops. We also highlight this research as a metaphor for the empathic understanding that each faculty member can gain by listening to students, individually and collectively, and distilling lessons for their practice. 

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