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Tropes about disability, stereotyped views and biased visions of what disabled life is, often occupy - haunt, maybe - the ways in which technologies related to disability are designed, marketed, and shared. Technology is then taken as a redemptive power for that which demanded an answer or solution or some means of address. There are two errors in our traditional narratives -- (1) we get stories about technology wrong, and (2) we get stories about disability wrong, both of these because of how we talk about disability technology. I’m interested in telling better stories about technology and disability, some of these in the service of better technology, better design -- but really in service of disability community and disabled flourishing. 

Disabled people continue to be significantly underrepresented and marginalized in engineering. Current reports indicate that approximately 26 percent of US adults have some form of disability. Yet only 6 percent of undergraduate students enrolled in engineering programs belong to this group. Several barriers have been identified that discourage and even prohibit people with disabilities from participating in engineering including arduous accommodations processes, lack of institutional support, and negative peer, staff, and faculty attitudes. These barriers are perpetuated and reinforced by a variety of ableist sociocultural norms and definitions that rely on popularized tropes and medicalized models that influence the ways this group experiences school to become engineers. In this paper, we seek to contribute to conversations that shape understanding of disability identity and the ways it is conceptualized in engineering programs. We revisit interview data from an ongoing grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students who identify as having one or more disabilities. Through our qualitative analysis, we identified overarching themes that contribute to understanding of how participants define and integrate disability identity to form professional identities and the ways they reshape and contribute to the civil engineering field through this lens. Emergent themes include experiencing/considering disability identity as a fluid experience, as a characteristic that ‘sets you apart’, and as a medicalized symptom or condition. Findings from this work can be used by engineering educators and administrators to inform more effective academic and personal support structures to destigmatize disability and promote the participation and inclusion of students and colleagues with disabilities in engineering and in our academic and professional communities. 

Abstract Philosophers often enroll disabled bodies and minds as objects of thought in their arguments from marginal cases and in thought experiments: for example, arguments for animal ethics use cognitively disabled people as a contrast case, and Merleau-Ponty uses a blind man with a cane as an exemplar of the relationship of technology to the human, of how technology mediates. However, these philosophers enroll disabled people without engaging significantly in any way with disabled people themselves. Instead, disabled people are treated in philosophy as literal objects—and in many cases, as less than human. (This sense of a categorical difference between disabled and nondisabled people is becoming especially clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, as I write this article.) Philosophical reflection thus makes assumptions—often wrong—about disabled people’s lives, experiences, and relationships to technology. Outside of philosophy as well as in, disabled people are not regarded as experts about our own experiences and lives; our testimony is paternalistically written over. We need better consideration of disabled people as people as we consider the future. Lack of disabled people’s points of view in philosophy colors—and sometimes invalidates—views of technological change. 

As the need for civil engineers continues to grow, so too does the need to broaden participation and increase diversity in the field. While researchers in civil engineering (CE) education have identified the need for more intentional recruitment and retention of women and people of color in the civil engineering field, few studies have considered disability status in these contexts. To address this gap in the literature and enhance the recruitment and retention of minoritized groups in civil engineering, we explore the intersections of gender and disability in civil engineering to better understand why individuals choose to leave the discipline. We focus our discussion on the experiences of Sammie, Shawn, and Natalie, three white women who identify as having disabilities and are no longer enrolled in CE programs. As part of a larger, longitudinal study examining the professional identity formation of undergraduate CE students with disabilities, semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant and analyzed using open and focused grounded theory coding techniques. Findings revealed four overarching themes that capture participants’ pathways out of civil engineering: 1) experiencing conflicts with dominant CE culture; 2) encountering barriers within the CE curriculum; 3) navigating intersecting stereotypes and compounding marginalization; and 4) leaving while remaining peripherally identified with the CE discipline. While participants’ identification with the discipline were altered, they were not eliminated; in leaving, all participants chose to pursue careers that are peripherally related to CE. These findings point to potential strategies and opportunities for supporting students who may leave the major, but do not intend to leave the profession altogether and highlight the cross-functionality of engineering workplaces not always acknowledged in academia. Overall, this work contributes to ongoing efforts to intentionally lower and remove barriers that serve to marginalize any group in civil engineering education and engineering education, broadly. 

National agencies throughout Australia and the United States (U.S.) have called for broadened participation in engineering, including participation by individuals with disabilities. However, studies demonstrate that students with disabilities are not effectively supported by university systems and cultures. This lack of support can shape how students form professional identities as they move through school and into careers. To better understand these experiences and create a more inclusive environment in engineering, we conducted a constructivist grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation in students who identify as having a disability as they study civil engineering and experience their first year of work. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 undergraduate civil engineering students across the U.S. and analysed them using grounded theory techniques. Navigating sociocultural expectations of disability emerged as one key theme, consisting of three strategy types: (1) neutrally satisfying expectations, (2) challenging expectations, and (3) aligning with expectations. Regardless of strategy, all participants navigated sociocultural expectations related to their studies and their disabilities. This theme highlights the ways sociocultural influences impact students’ navigation through their undergraduate civil engineering careers. These findings can be used to examine cultural barriers faced by students with disabilities to enhance their inclusion in engineering. 

Context: Within higher education, reports show that approximately 6% of Australian college students and 13% of U.S. college students have identified as having a disability to their institution of higher education. Findings from research in K-12 education report that students with disabilities often leave secondary school with lower college aspirations and are discouraged from taking engineering-related courses. Those who do enrol are often not supported effectively and must navigate physical, cultural, and bureaucratic university systems in order to access resources necessary for success in school and work. This lack of support is problematic as cognitive, developmental, mental health, and physical disabilities can markedly shape the ways in which students perceive and experience school, form professional identities, and move into the engineering workforce. However, little work has explored professional identity development within this population, specifically within a single engineering discipline such as civil engineering. Purpose: To move beyond tolerance and actively embrace students with diverse perspectives in engineering higher education, the purpose of this study is to understand the ways in which undergraduate students who experience disability form professional identities as civil engineers. Approach: Drawing on the sensitizing concepts of identity saliency, intersectionality, and social identity theory, we utilize Constructivist Grounded Theory (GT) to explore the influences of and interactions among students' disability and professional identities within civil engineering. Semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately 90 minutes, were conducted with undergraduate civil engineering students who identified as having a disability. Here, we present our findings from the initial and focused coding phases of our GT analysis. Results: Our analyses revealed two themes warranting further exploration: 1) varying levels of disability identity saliency in relation to the development of a professional identity; and 2) conflicting colloquial and individual conceptualizations of disability. Overall, it has been observed that students' experiences with and perceptions of these themes tend to vary based on characteristics of an experienced disability. Conclusions: Students with disabilities experience college - and form professional identities - in a variety of ways. While further research is required to delineate how disability shapes college students' professional identities and vice versa, gaining an understanding of student experiences can yield insights to help us create educational spaces that better allow students with disabilities to flourish in engineering and make engineering education more inclusive.