Empowering Engineering Scholar-Activists through Community-driven Research Experiences

尽管努力促进大学校园的多样性和包容性资源，但对于身份被边缘化的学生来说，工程文化仍然是一种寒冷的氛围。虽然以前的研究侧重于调查来自代表性不足人群的工科学生的经历，但它们在很大程度上忽视了处于多种边缘化身份交叉点的学生，而且他们往往缺乏重大行动来帮助创造更具包容性的环境。这个项目将采取下一步行动，不仅仅是描述被边缘化的工程学学生的经历。这项工作的最终目标将是通过发展一个由代表不足的工程学学生和盟友组成的协作性、学生驱动型研究社区来改变工程学文化。这个由学者积极分子组成的社区将把他们的奖学金用在边缘化的工程学学生群体中，以倡导个人和机构的变革。学生将阅读和讨论相关的工程教育和社会学文献，反思自己的经历和行动，与校园内的积极分子接触，对边缘群体的工程师进行自己的研究，并领导未来的社区外展和组织努力。该项目与扩大工程学参与(BPE)计划保持一致，该计划旨在促进工程学中代表性不足群体的多样性和包容性，特别是在其创建包容性研究社区的创新方法方面，该社区将改善来自代表性不足群体的学生的留存，并可在其他情况下复制。为了在历史上被边缘化的工程学学生中培养学者积极分子，该项目将使学生参与充满活力的研究社区，在那里他们获得支持，以追求自己的本科和研究生研究项目，以扩大对工程学的参与。该项目的主要组成部分将包括一个为学生发起的定性研究提供建设性反馈和支持的研究小组，一个教职员工和研究生研究导师网络，公开邀请边缘化学生及其盟友阅读和讨论BPE文献的期刊俱乐部，以及为所有工程学教师提供学习包容性实践的机会。我们的理论立场将遵循批判理论的原则：(1)我们将通过让学生作为研究者来集中他们在研究中的声音。(2)我们将生活体验作为进行本研究的重要条件。(3)我们将增强领导研究的学生的能力，这将加强他们的社会认同，并潜在地增强他们的积极分子身份。(四)研究和行动相结合，做好应对内在矛盾的准备。为了实施这种批判性的方法，并发展学者积极分子，我们将使用来自工程教育内外的抵抗和社会正义文献。围绕被边缘化的工程师创建一个以学生为中心的研究社区的整体模式具有潜在的变革性，并有可能被其他机构和其他工程专业的学生群体采用。该项目将培训边缘化的工程学学生，无论他们下一步走到哪里，都能建立社区。此外，这个项目可能会通过为边缘化的工程学学生创造更多的(并增加)安全空间来改善气候和留住学生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Despite efforts to advance diversity and inclusion resources on college campuses, engineering culture remains a chilly climate for students with marginalized identities. While prior studies have focused on investigating the experience of engineering students from underrepresented populations, they largely ignore students at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities and they often lack significant action to help create more inclusive environments. This project will take the next step to move beyond merely describing the experiences of marginalized engineering students. The ultimate goal of this work will be to change engineering culture by growing a collaborative, student-driven research community of underrepresented engineering students and allies. This community of scholar-activists will employ their scholarship on marginalized engineering student populations to advocate for personal and institutional change. Students will read and discuss relevant engineering education and sociology literature, reflect on their own experiences and actions, engage with activists across campus, conduct their own research on engineers from marginalized groups, and lead future community outreach and organization efforts. This project aligns with the Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) program to enhance the diversity and inclusion of underrepresented groups in engineering, particularly in its innovative approach to creating inclusive research communities that will improve retention of students from underrepresented groups and that can be replicated in other contexts.In the pursuit to develop scholar-activists among students historically marginalized in engineering, this project will engage students in a vibrant research community where they are supported in pursuing their own undergraduate and graduate research projects for and about broadening participation in engineering. Key components of the project will include a research group that provides constructive feedback and support of student-initiated qualitative research, a network of faculty and graduate researcher mentors, journal clubs with an open invitation for marginalized students and allies to read and discuss the literature on BPE, and opportunities for all engineering faculty to learn inclusive practices. Our theoretical stance will follow the tenets of critical theory: (1) We will center the voices of the students in the research by engaging them as researchers. (2) We will value lived experience as an important qualification for doing this research. (3) We will empower the students leading the research, which will strengthen their social identities and potentially their activist identities. (4) We will integrate research and action and are prepared to deal with the inherent contradictions. To enact this critical approach and develop scholar-activists, we will use resistance and social justice literature from within and beyond engineering education. The overall model of creating a student-centered research community around marginalized engineers is potentially transformative and has potential for adoption at other institutions and for other engineering student populations. This project will train marginalized engineering students to build community wherever they go next. Additionally, this project is likely to improve climate and retention by creating additional (and increasing visibility of) safe spaces for marginalized engineering students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.