Who's Not at the Table?: Building Research Capacity for Underserved Communities in Engineering

这一研讨会提案的重点是制定国家研究议程，以扩大那些自认为是残疾人、退伍军人、低收入/第一代或LGBTQ社区成员的人对工程的参与。努力增加学习计算机科学和工程的学生人数是国家的当务之急。此外，有必要确保这一劳动力代表国家人口，因为多样化的劳动力将通过纳入技术创造中的多种视角和经验来激发更大的创新和创造力。创建更加多样化的劳动力队伍的努力往往侧重于招募和留住人数不足的人口的干预措施。因此，进展的速度不是很快，因为这些努力往往是局部的，不易扩大。需要的是更多的研究，以了解阻碍和影响这些服务不足的群体充分参与的各种因素。该项目将召开一次思想领袖研讨会，包括学者、实践者、政策制定者和来自广泛社会科学学科的其他人。来自全国各地的参与者将寻求对如何最好地提高研究能力的理解，以更好地理解为什么这些群体在计算机科学和工程劳动力中的代表性如此之低。与会者将确定现有研究和新的研究可能性，这些研究涉及特定服务不足群体中的人员参与计算和工程。其目标是帮助确定扩大这些目标人群在工程和计算机科学劳动力队伍中的参与领域的研究领域的国家议程。

This workshop proposal focuses on developing a national agenda for research in broadening participation in engineering by those who self-identify as persons with disabilities, veterans, low income/first generation or members of the LGBTQ community. The effort to increase the numbers of students who study computer science and engineering is a national imperative. Furthermore, there is a need to ensure this workforce is representative of the nation's populations as a diverse workforce will spark greater innovation and creativity through the incorporation of multiple perspectives and experiences in the creation of technology. Efforts to create a more diverse workforce have often focused on interventions to recruit and retain under-represented populations. As a result progress has not occurred at a substantial rate as these efforts tend to be localized and not easily scaled. What is needed is greater research in understanding the various factors that impede and influence the full participation of these underserved groups.The project will convene a workshop of thought leaders, including scholars, practitioners, policy makers and others from a broad spectrum of social science disciplines. Brought together from across the nation, the participants will seek to develop an understanding of how best to increase research capacity to better understand why these groups are so underrepresented in the computer science and engineering workforce. Participants will identify existing research and new research possibilities regarding computing and engineering participation by persons from the specified under-served groups. The goal is to help define the national agenda for areas of research in the field of broadening participation for these targeted populations in the engineering and computer science workforce.