skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • On the Importance of Spatiality and Intersectionality: Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Undergraduate Engineering Experiences Through Critical Collaborative Ethnographic Site Visits
Title: On the Importance of Spatiality and Intersectionality: Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Undergraduate Engineering Experiences Through Critical Collaborative Ethnographic Site Visits
Engineering as a field is dominated by toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, whiteness, and cisnormativity, as well as the promotion of objectiveness and depoliticization of identity. There is a dearth of knowledge surrounding transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) student experiences in engineering, and much of the [limited] available research on TGNC STEM student lives assumes a universalized trans experience, not taking into account intersecting marginal identities that can affect a student’s performance and sense of belonging in engineering or STEM environments. STEM-related research into marginalized populations’ experiences is often done without the use of feminist, queer, trans, and anti-racist research methodologies that take into consideration power imbalances between the researcher and participant and the implications of conducting research on and with subordinated population groups. This study addresses these research gaps. We used critical collaborative ethnographic site visits to center TGNC positionality and community-centered research ethics. Critical ethnographic methods put critical theories into action by rooting the participant’s experiences and study observations in larger global justice frameworks at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, culture, and disability. This framing places the researcher with the subjects to co-create results from the fieldwork, allowing students to retain power in the relationship with the researcher and exert some control over their portrayal in the research products. Further, marginalized population group research is best conducted by members of that population group so as to upset inherent power imbalances between the researcher and the participant. So, as a critical part of our methodology, our research team consists of transgender, gender nonconforming, and cisgender interdisciplinary researchers in engineering and women, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS), with a transgender and queer WGSS researcher as the only point of contact with the TGNC research participants. This paper details the results from a 4-day critical collaborative ethnographic site visit involving two mechanical engineering students at a prestigious private university in the Northeastern United States. The activities of the visit included formal semi-structured interviews as well as less formal interactions with each participant, such as attending classes, visiting important campus and community spaces, or hanging out with the participant’s friend/peer groups. The visiting researcher also explored the college campus and the broader community on his own, noting the location's unique specificity. As predicted by previous literature and theoretical grounding and significant findings from previous phases of this research, the results pointed to the uniqueness of each student’s identity, location, political worldview, and support system. The two TGNC student participants, both with multiple intersecting marginal identities, had incredibly different experiences in the same mechanical engineering program, leading to one participant experiencing resounding success and the other leaving STEM altogether. The findings from this critical collaborative ethnographic site visit suggest that barriers to success or finding belonging for TGNC students in engineering must be considered through the use of intersectionality theory.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1764103
PAR ID:
10526844
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
ASEE Conferences
Date Published:
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
LGBTQIA+ Engineering Gender
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Arlington, Virginia
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; (, CoNECD)
    null (Ed.)
    The study of gender in engineering continues to be highly relevant due to the persistence of the field’s domination by men and masculinity. Mainstream discourse on gender in STEM, however, has been kept in a “black box” for decades according to Allison Phipps [1]. She states that the reliance on a simplistic gender binary unaccompanied by racial, cultural, or sexual identity nuances undermines engineering’s own political aims of gender equity. One large gap in our existing body of gender research and discourse is how the highly gendered landscape of engineering education is experienced transgender or gender nonconforming (TGNC) people. We are opening the “black box” on gender in our research project “Invisibilized Gendered Experiences: Transgender and Gender-nonconforming Experiences in Engineering Education.” The research project contains three key objectives: 1) To infuse queer studies and feminist research methodologies into engineering education research practice 2). To record, examine, and share the wide range of experiences from TGNC engineering students to our research community, and 3). To collaborate with the student community to inform the research products for engineering educators and researchers. This presentation will first introduce the audience to conceptualizations of gender informed by contemporary queer theory, which defines gender as a fluid and dynamic social system beyond biological binaries. Next, we will use our own research project as an example of how we can transform our approach to the study of gender through feminist research methodologies that place the subject community as the experts on their lived experiences. We end by sharing prominent themes from the 300 national participants in our initial community outreach questionnaire. This final portion provides ideas offered by the undergraduate TGNC population on how to build a more supportive and inclusive environment for their success. Altogether, this presentation provides a comprehensive look at our project on gender resiliency by TGNC students in engineering education. 
    more » « less
  2. (, Critical, Transdisciplinary and Embodied Approaches in STEM Education)
    null (Ed.)
    In this chapter, we investigate how innovations in STEM, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and 3D Sculpting, can support the development of critical literacies about gender and sexuality. Our work arises from the concern that the assumed \naturalness" of male/female binary categories in biol- ogy is often at the center of the queer, trans, and intersex panics in public education. Echoing sociologists and critical scholars of gender and sexu- ality, we posit that transgender and queer identities should be positioned as realms of playful, active inquiry. Further, we investigate how new forms of computational representational infrastructures can be leveraged to support productive and playful experiences of inquiry about gender and sexuality. We present a retrospective analysis of a design group meeting of a small group of friends in their early thirties with gender nonconforming and queer identities and life histories. The group interacted in VR-based environments, where they engaged in two di erent forms of construction- ist learning experiences: creating 3D sculptures of personally meaningful objects, and re-creating their VR avatars in VR social media. Our analysis illustrates how such experiences can be productively analyzed using so- cial constructivist perspectives that situate knowing as boundary play and gured worlds, and the roles that play and friendship have in supporting deep and critical engagement with complex narratives and marginalized experiences of gender and sexuality. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, Studies in engineering education)
    Paretti, Marie; Brown, Shane (Ed.)
    Background: Dominant discourse regarding gender in engineering and engineering education relies on simplistic notions of gender as a rigid binary, which obscures the existence of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people and the gender dynamics they experience. Purpose: This paper seeks to address the limits of the dominant gender discourse and research paradigm and propose new paths forward. This article calls researchers to intentionally transform their approach and framing of gender to create gender equity for all. Scope: An examination of existing literature in engineering education is put against prevailing theories of gender and human difference from across academia. The overwhelming majority of literature in the field exists within a reductive gender binary. TGNC students and professionals are largely invisible in engineering education research and theory and this exclusion causes harm to individuals as well as our community as a whole. Such exclusion is not limited to engineering contexts but is found to be a central component of systemic TGNC marginalization in higher education and in the United States. Discussion: We call for a substantive disciplinary shift towards studying the deep complexity of gender informed by, and accountable to, literature on gender theory, queer studies, and feminist research methodology. We propose interventions for engineering education researchers categorized into three levels: 1) Micro— to recognize gender diversity in engineering education; 2) Meso—to describe and analyze the experiences of TGNC students in research; and 3) Macro—to transform our discipline’s conceptualization and theoretical framing of gender. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; (, 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity)
    Undergraduate programs in engineering are demanding, time consuming, and inherently social endeavors for young adults. Strong social support networks and communities which foster success are frequently found to increase student retention and perseverance through their engineering degree programs. Students with marginalized identities in higher education are met with additional workloads – managing their social identity, negotiating stereotypes, and finding belonging. Existing research shows that a student’s experience in in higher education is particularly shaped by gender interactions. This has been shown to be particularly true in engineering, whose gender demographics and professional culture is described as hegemonically masculine. Research on gender in engineering has typically framed gender within a rigid, essentialized cisgender binary. Current literature is lacking detail on the processes used by gender diverse students in the transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) community as they navigate the gendered engineering field. We wish to highlight the experiences that undergraduate engineering students have had in relation to their social support and perceptions of gender as it relates to engineering culture within their undergraduate programs. Two students participated in autoethnography as a method of data collection to meet this objective. Collaborative autoethnographic methods position the students as coauthors and coresearchers to ensure the validity of analysis alongside the project’s primary investigators. Using a resiliency framework and critical autoethnographic analysis, the primary focus is on the ways these students have formed support systems and their perception of the social landscape in engineering. Through exploring how students persevere through their programs we may uncover points of intervention to strengthen these support systems. 
    more » « less
  5. ; (, ASEE Conferences)
    The purpose of this research paper is to test to see if science and engineering identity differ between students along the basis of minoritized sexual and gender identities. LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning) students are more likely to leave engineering and other STEM majors before the end of their fourth year of college, much of which is due to the hetero- and cisnormative climate they experience in STEM departments. The climate may undermine students' identification with science and engineering, affecting their motivation, belonging, and persistence in these fields. The data for this study was collected from student surveys at four research universities nationally, with 548 students forming the analytic sample. About 56% of the sample are LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer), 16% TGNC (transgender, gender nonconforming, or nonbinary), and 65% are in a STEM major. Students completed a two-part survey which encompassed data about their social networks and their college experiences. The data for this analysis were drawn from the section on students' college experiences, which included an adaptation of Godwin's engineering identity measures to assess students' interest in their chosen field of study, students' assessment of their competence and performance in their courses, and students' perceptions of being recognized as a science person and as an engineering person. Demographic data on sexual identity, gender identity, and major were used to test comparisons. ANOVA and regression modeling were used to test group differences. For the most part, few differences were observed between groups regarding measures of science and engineering identity. Interest in their field of study only differed marginally by LGBQ status, with LGBQ students scoring slightly higher than heterosexual students. Perceptions of competence and performance in their field of study differed only by STEM major, with STEM students scoring slightly lower, suggesting some potential degree of insecurity among STEM students regarding their academic performance. Recognition as a science person only differed by STEM major as STEM students reported much higher recognition than their non-STEM peers. Recognition as an engineering person also differed by STEM major similar to recognition as a science person, but to a somewhat lesser degree; however, LGBQ students also reported being less likely to be recognized as an engineering person as well. Taken together, if engineering and other STEM fields look to broaden participation among people from groups historically excluded from full, authentic participation, one factor is the extent to which LGBTQ people see themselves as part of these fields. The data presented here suggest to some extent that LGBTQ people score similarly to their peers on indicators of science and engineering identity, but that attention to their experiences is still warranted. As LGBTQ issues become politicized across the nation, LGBTQ individuals need safe environments in STEM fields to nurture their intrinsic motivation and pursue fulfilling careers. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email