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

合作研究：EAGER：理解融合：工程教育和实践中的社会身份

• 批准号: 1528848
• 负责人: Michelle Bothwell
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-15 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1528848&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; EAGER; Understanding; Confluence

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.

探索工程学生的社会和文化身份以及这些身份如何影响学生向工程实践的进步工程教育和实践仍然缺乏重要的代表性和包容性，包括妇女、拉丁裔/拉丁裔、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。很明显，为了使工程专业多样化，需要制定和实施新的教育策略。本项目采用一种全新的方法，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方面所起的作用。项目的结果应该揭示切实的、实用的主题，指出为什么有些学生追求、坚持并保留工程专业，而另一些学生却没有。研究结果将为未来的工作提供基础，重点是识别、设计和实施工程和计算机科学课程和项目转型，最终创造公平、公正的教育环境，有意识地认识到学生身份的各个方面，认识到社会、经济和政治权力的重要性及其对生活经历的差异、分层影响。肯定学生的不同之处。据推测，与那些认同其他群体的学生相比，那些认同以美国文化为中心的社会类别的学生（例如，白人、有能力的人、异性恋者、男性、基督徒、社会经济富裕者）在完成本科工程课程的过程中会有更高的归属感和自我效能感。归属感和自我效能感都与留任和职业认同形成呈正相关。因为关系和结构权力积累给那些最接近神话规范的人，那些与这些社会类别不一致的人可能被迫吸收或保留甚至否认他们的社会和文化身份的组成部分，作为成功驾驭工程文化的一种手段。这被称为“身份隔离”，并且假设它与工程教育和实践的持久性呈负相关。要实现上述目标，我们需要调查学生和教师对交叉社会身份的看法，以及他们与工程文化的融合。将采用混合方法，结合定性和定量技术，以便提供更全面的了解。到赠款结束时，将实现以下目标：(i)确定来自边缘社区的工程和计算机科学专业学生的身份隔离主题，这些学生有可能影响成为工程专业人士的道路；并且，（ii）确定教师对跨差异的关系和结构权力的理解在帮助或阻碍边缘群体的学生成功地在工程专业中定位的道路上所起的作用。该项目将在卡皮奥拉尼社区学院（两年制部落学院）、俄勒冈州立大学（研究型机构）和德克萨斯大学泛美分校（西班牙裔服务机构）这三个非常不同的机构合作实施。这三所大学的学生群体和地区明显不同，但最有可能的是，它们都有身份分离的表现，影响着工程和计算机科学专业学生的成功和坚持。