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1. The school stakeholder community as a source of capital for the talent development of black students in a high school engineering career academy

   https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-11-2021-0195  

   Fletcher, Edward C.; Hines, Erik M.; Ford, Donna Y.; Grantham, Tarek C.; Moore III, James L. (August 2022, European Journal of Training and Development)

   Purpose This paper aims to examine the role of school stakeholders (e.g. advisory board members, school administrators, parents, teachers and school board members) at a 99% black academy in promoting the achievement and broadening participation of high school black students in engineering career pathways. Design/methodology/approach The authors followed a qualitative case study design to explore the experiences of school stakeholders (e.g. students, district and school personnel and community partners) associated with the implementation of the career academy (Stake, 2006; Yin, 1994). Findings The authors found that the school relied heavily on the support of the community in the form of an advisory board – including university faculty and industry leaders – to actively develop culturally responsive strategies (e.g. American College Test preparation, work-based learning opportunities) to ensure the success of black students interested in pursuing career pathways in engineering. Thus, school stakeholders in the academy of engineering served as authentic leaders who inspired academy students by serving as role models and setting examples through what they do as engineering professionals. It was quite evident that the joy and fulfillment that these authentic leaders gained from using their talents directly or indirectly inspired students in the academy to seek out and cultivate the talents they are good at and passionate about as well (Debebe, 2017). Moreover, the career academy provided environmental or sociocultural conditions that promoted the development of learners’ gifts and talents (Plucker and Barab, 2005). Within that context, the goals of career academy school stakeholders were to support students in the discovery of what they are good at doing and to structure their educational experiences to cultivate their gifts into talents. Research limitations/implications It is also important to acknowledge that this study is not generalizable to the one million career academy students across the nation. Yet, the authors believe researchers should continue to examine the career academy advisory board as a source of capital for engaging and preparing diverse learners for success post-high school. Further research is needed to investigate how advisory boards support students’ in school and postsecondary outcomes, particularly for diverse students. Practical implications The authors highlight promising practices for schools to implement in establishing a diverse talent pipeline. Social implications On a theoretical level, the authors found important insights into the possibility of black students benefiting from a culturally responsive advisory board that provided social and cultural capital (e.g. aspirational, navigational and social) resources for their success. Originality/value While prior researchers have studied the positive impact of teachers in career academies as a contributor to social capital for students (Lanford and Maruco, 2019) and what diverse students bring to the classroom as a form of capital Debebe(Yosso, 2005), research has not identified the role of the advisory board (in its efforts to connect the broader community) as a vehicle for equipping ethnically and racially diverse students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds with social capital. Within that sense, the authors believe the advisory board at Stanton Academy relied on what the authors term local community capital to provide resources and supports for black students’ successful transition from high school into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related college and career pathways. 

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2. Illuminating inequality in access: Variation in enrollment in undergraduate engineering programs across Virginia's high schools

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20352  

   Knight, David B.; Grohs, Jacob R.; Bradburn, Isabel S.; Kinoshita, Timothy J.; Vaziri, Stacey; M. Matusovich, Holly; Carrico, Cheryl (October 2020, Journal of Engineering Education)

   Abstract BackgroundDetermining the root causes of persistent underrepresentation of different subpopulations in engineering remains a continued challenge. Because place‐based variation of resource distribution is not random and because school and community contexts influence high school outcomes, considering variation across those contexts should be paramount in broadening participation research. Purpose/HypothesisThis study takes a macroscopic systems view of engineering enrollments to understand variation across one state's public high school rates of engineering matriculation. Design/MethodThis study uses a dataset from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System that includes all students who completed high school from a Virginia public school from 2007 to 2014 (N= 685,429). We explore geographic variation in four‐year undergraduate engineering enrollment as a function of gender, race/ethnicity, and economically disadvantaged status. Additionally, we investigate the relationship between characteristics of the high school and community contexts and undergraduate engineering enrollment across Virginia's high schools using regression analysis. ResultsOur findings illuminate inequality in enrollment in engineering programs at four‐year institutions across high schools by gender, race, and socioeconomic status (and the intersections among those demographics). Different high schools have different engineering enrollment rates among students who attend four‐year postsecondary institutions. We show strong associations between high schools' engineering enrollment rates and four‐year institution enrollment rates as well as moderate associations for high schools' community socioeconomic status. ConclusionsStrong systemic forces need to be overcome to broaden participation in engineering. We demonstrate the insights that state longitudinal data systems can illuminate in engineering education research. 

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3. Development of a Femalized Kinesthetic Learning Model to Increase Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Career Interests in African American Middle School Girls

   Fash, M F (December 2024, ProQuest LLC)

   Although an increase in their participation could reduce workforce shortages and diversify innovations in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, African American women remain significantly underrepresented in male-dominated AEC careers. Furthermore, partly due to the lack of early and meaningful AEC exposure, African American girls tend to have low interests in AEC careers. AEC infused out-of-school time (OST) programs have been successful in increasing middle-school girls’ AEC career self-efficacy and interests. However, there is limited understanding on how salient identities interact with learning experiences in AEC-infused OST learning environments to impact AEC career interests. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the salient identities of African American middle-school girls interact with learning experiences within a developed femalized AEC Kinesthetic Learning Model (fAEC-KLM) to impact AEC career interests. Adopting Lent’s social cognitive career theory, the gender and culturally responsive fAEC-KLM is a five-day AEC-infused OST program that engaged 14 African American middle-school girls in bridge-building projects, a panel session with female and African American AEC undergraduates, interactions with female and African American AEC professionals, and success stories featuring female and African American AEC professionals. Using a mixed method approach, data from interviews, surveys, tests, and observations are analyzed to assess changes in AEC career knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests. Results show that the most effective fAEC-KLM components were lectures, bridge construction project, and peer interactions which improved AEC career knowledge, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging respectively. These in turn increased AEC career interests and three interest categories (active, passive, and null) are utilized to explain how varying fAEC-KLM interactions contributed to three different levels of AEC career interests. The findings align with prior career development and intersectionality frameworks. Findings also fill a critical gap in career development literature by providing insights into AEC career interest development processes in African American middle school girls through OST programs while highlighting how gender and culturally responsive approaches foster interests. Insights and recommendations contribute to ongoing literature to support interventions and policies that foster more equitable representation in AEC careers, increase diversity in AEC innovations, and reduce workforce shortages. 

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4. Open-source data pipeline for street-view images: A case study on community mobility during COVID-19 pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303180  

   Martell, Matthew; Terry, Nick; Sengupta, Ribhu; Salazar, Chris; Errett, Nicole A; Miles, Scott B; Wartman, Joseph; Choe, Youngjun (May 2024, PLOS ONE)

   Mosa, Ahmed Mancy (Ed.)

   Street View Images (SVI) are a common source of valuable data for researchers. Researchers have used SVI data for estimating pedestrian volumes, demographic surveillance, and to better understand built and natural environments in cityscapes. However, the most common source of publicly available SVI data is Google Street View. Google Street View images are collected infrequently, making temporal analysis challenging, especially in low population density areas. Our main contribution is the development of an open-source data pipeline for processing 360-degree video recorded from a car-mounted camera. The video data is used to generate SVIs, which then can be used as an input for longitudinal analysis. We demonstrate the use of the pipeline by collecting an SVI dataset over a 38-month longitudinal survey of Seattle, WA, USA during the COVID-19 pandemic. The output of our pipeline is validated through statistical analyses of pedestrian traffic in the images. We confirm known results in the literature and provide new insights into outdoor pedestrian traffic patterns. This study demonstrates the feasibility and value of collecting and using SVI for research purposes beyond what is possible with currently available SVI data. Our methods and dataset represent a first of its kind longitudinal collection and application of SVI data for research purposes. Limitations and future improvements to the data pipeline and case study are also discussed. 

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5. A dataset of mentorship in bioscience with semantic and demographic estimations

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01578-x  

   Ke, Qing; Liang, Lizhen; Ding, Ying; David, Stephen V.; Acuna, Daniel E. (August 2022, Scientific Data)

   Abstract Mentorship in science is crucial for topic choice, career decisions, and the success of mentees and mentors. Typically, researchers who study mentorship use article co-authorship and doctoral dissertation datasets. However, available datasets of this type focus on narrow selections of fields and miss out on early career and non-publication-related interactions. Here, we describe Mentorship, a crowdsourced dataset of 743176 mentorship relationships among 738989 scientists primarily in biosciences that avoids these shortcomings. Our dataset enriches the Academic Family Tree project by adding publication data from the Microsoft Academic Graph and “semantic” representations of research using deep learning content analysis. Because gender and race have become critical dimensions when analyzing mentorship and disparities in science, we also provide estimations of these factors. We perform extensive validations of the profile–publication matching, semantic content, and demographic inferences, which mostly cover neuroscience and biomedical sciences. We anticipate this dataset will spur the study of mentorship in science and deepen our understanding of its role in scientists’ career outcomes. 

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