Collaborative Research: EAGER: Understanding the Confluence: Social Identities in Engineering Education and Practice

探索工程专业学生的社会和文化身份以及这些身份影响学生走向工程实践的方式工程教育和实践仍然缺乏妇女，拉丁美洲人/拉丁美洲人，非洲裔美国人，美洲原住民，太平洋岛民，夏威夷原住民和残疾人等的重要代表性和包容性。显然，需要制定和实施新的教育战略，以使工程专业多样化。这个项目采取了一种新的方法，努力展示学生的个人身份（即，种族、民族、性别、能力、性身份、语言等的交叉点）在帮助或阻碍本科工程和计算机科学课程的成功中发挥作用。该项目的结果应该揭示有形的，实际的主题，指出为什么有些学生追求，坚持，并保留在工程专业，而其他人没有。研究结果将为未来的工作提供基础，重点是工程和计算机科学课程和方案转型的识别，设计和实施，最终创造公平，公正的教育环境，有意承认学生身份的各个方面，认识到社会，经济和政治权力及其对生活经验的差异，分层影响的重要性，并肯定学生跨越他们的差异。假设学生谁确定沿着社会类别是以美国文化为中心（例如，白色，身体健全，异性恋，男性，基督徒，社会经济富裕）将有更高的归属感和自我效能感，因为他们通过他们的本科工程课程的进展，相对于那些谁认同其他群体。研究表明，归属感和自我效能感与保留和职业认同形成正相关。由于关系和结构性权力会累积到那些最接近神话规范的人身上，那些不符合这些社会类别的人可能会被迫同化或保留甚至否认其社会和文化身份的组成部分，作为成功驾驭工程文化的手段。这被称为“身份断绝”，据推测，这是负相关的坚持工程教育和实践。实现上述目标将需要我们调查学生和教师的交叉社会身份和他们的融合与工程文化的看法。将采用混合方法，将定性和定量技术结合起来，以提供更全面的了解。在补助金结束时，将实现以下目标：（一）确定来自边缘化社区的工程和计算机科学学生的身份分离主题，这些主题有可能影响他们进入工程专业的道路;并且，在本发明中，（二）确定教师对关系和结构性权力的理解在帮助或阻碍边缘群体学生方面的作用成功地导航的道路，成为位于工程专业。该项目将在三个非常不同的机构合作实施- Kapiolani社区学院（两年制部落学院），俄勒冈州州立大学（研究I机构）和得克萨斯州泛美大学（西班牙裔服务机构）。 这三个服务于显着不同的学生群体和地区，但最有可能共享的身份断绝影响工程和计算机科学学生的成功和持久性的表现。

Exploring social and cultural identities of engineering students and the ways these identities affect students' progression towards engineering practice Engineering education and practice continues to lack significant representation and inclusion of women, Latinos/Latinas, African Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians, and persons with disabilities, among others. It is clear that new educational strategies need to be developed and implemented in order to diversify the engineering profession. This project takes a fresh approach in an effort to demonstrate the role students' individual identities (i.e., intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, sexual identity, language, etc.) play in helping or hindering success in undergraduate engineering and computer science programs. The project's results should reveal tangible, practical themes which point to why some students pursue, persist, and retain in the engineering profession while others do not. Research findings will provide a foundation for future work focused on the identification, design, and implementation of curricular and programmatic transformation in engineering and computer science, towards the end of creating equitable, just educational environments that intentionally recognize the various aspects of students' identities, recognize the importance of social, economic and political power and its differential, stratifying impact on lived experiences, and affirm students across their differences.It is hypothesized that students who identify along social categories that are centered in US culture (e.g., white, able bodied, heterosexual, male, Christian, socioeconomic affluence) will have a higher sense of belonging and self-efficacy as they progress through their undergraduate engineering programs, relative to those who identify with other groups. Both sense of belonging and self-efficacy have been shown to be positively correlated to retention and to professional identity formation. Because relational and structural power accrues to those who most closely approximate the mythical norm, those who do not align with these social categories may be compelled to assimilate or to withhold or even deny integral parts of their social and cultural identities as a means to successfully navigate engineering culture. This is referred to as "identity severance" and it is hypothesized that it is negatively correlated to persistence in engineering education and practice. Achieving the above stated goal will require that we investigate both student and faculty perceptions of intersecting social identities and their confluence with engineering culture. A mixed methods approach will be used, combining both qualitative and quantitative techniques in order to provide a more holistic understanding. By the end of the grant, the following objectives will be met: (i) ascertain themes of identity severance among engineering and computer science students from marginalized communities that have the potential to affect the path towards becoming situated within the engineering profession; and, (ii) identify the role faculty's understanding of relational and structural power across difference plays in helping or hindering students from marginalized groups successfully navigate the path towards becoming situated within the engineering profession. This project will be implemented collaboratively across three very distinct institutions -- Kapiolani Community College (a two-year tribal college), Oregon State University (a Research I institution), and The University of Texas-Pan American (a Hispanic Serving Institution). The three serve significantly different student populations and regions, but most likely share manifestations of identity severance that influence the success and persistence of engineering and computer science students.