The Double Bind of Race and Gender: A Look into the Experiences of Women of Color in Engineering

本项目涉及美国国家科学基金会扩大工程参与计划的三个主要项目利益：(a)分析和理解在代表性不足的人口群体中缺乏持续参与工程的问题；(b)确定教育和劳动力系统中可能影响工程持续性的结构性不平等和偏见；(c)研究缺乏获得支持系统和社会网络的机会，这些支持系统和社会网络提高了弱势群体对不同工程途径的职业意识。更重要的是，该项目有能力提供基础数据，以评估有色人种女性在工程领域的种族和性别双重束缚经历的累积效应，并提供有意义的证据，证明劣势是如何随着时间的推移而累积的。此外，从这个项目中产生的新知识具有巨大的潜力，为工程教师和从业者提供方向，如何最好地促进工程领域的多样性和包容性，多样性和包容性仍然是一个持续的挑战。该项目以交叉性为指导理论框架，致力于提高有色人种女性的工程兴趣和经验，以扩大参与范围。一种主要的定性研究方法被用来确定有色人种女性在工程领域必须克服的障碍。研究人员正在利用这些数据开发一个框架和模型，有色人种女性可以利用这个框架和模型来克服她们在工程和其他STEM学科中可能面临的挑战。

This project addresses three major project interests of National Science Foundation's Broadening Participation of Engineering program: (a) analyzing and understanding the problem of poorly sustained participation in engineering across underrepresented demographic groups; (b) identifying structural inequalities and biases within educational and workforce systems that may influence engineering persistence; and (c) examining insufficient access to support systems and social networks that raise career awareness about different engineering pathways among underrepresented groups. More importantly, the project has the ability to provide the foundational data to evaluate the cumulative effects of women of color's double bind experience of race and gender in engineering and provide meaningful evidence of how disadvantage accrues over time. Further, the new knowledge generated from this project possess great potential in providing directions to engineering faculty and practitioners on how best to promote diversity and inclusion in engineering, where both diversity and inclusion remain a persistent challenge. Using intersectionality as the guiding theoretical framework, the project focuses on improving the engineering interests and experiences of women of color for the purpose of broadening participation. A predominantly qualitative research methodology is being used to pinpoint the obstacles that women of color have to overcome in engineering. The investigators are using the data to develop a framework and model that women of color can use to overcome challenges that they might face in engineering and other STEM disciplines.