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

探讨工程学学生的社会和文化特征以及这些特征如何影响学生走向工程实践工程教育和实践仍然缺乏妇女、拉丁裔/拉丁裔、非裔美国人、美洲原住民、太平洋岛民、夏威夷原住民和残疾人等人的显著代表性和包容性。显然，需要制定和实施新的教育战略，以使工程专业多样化。这个项目采用了一种新的方法，努力展示学生的个人身份(即，种族、民族、性别、能力、性别认同、语言等的交集)所起的作用。在帮助或阻碍本科工程和计算机科学课程的成功方面发挥作用。该项目的结果应该揭示出切实的、实用的主题，这些主题指出了为什么一些学生追求、坚持并保留在工程专业，而另一些学生则不是。研究结果将为未来的工作提供基础，这些工作的重点是确定、设计和实施工程和计算机科学的课程和计划改革，最终创造公平、公正的教育环境，有意识地承认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不同、分层的影响，并肯定学生的不同。假设那些认同以美国文化为中心的社会类别的学生(例如，白人、健全的身体、异性恋、男性、基督徒、与那些认同其他群体的人相比，社会经济富裕的人在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被证明与保持和职业认同形成呈正相关。因为关系和结构力量积聚在那些最接近神话规范的人身上，那些与这些社会类别不一致的人可能会被迫同化、拒绝甚至否认他们的社会和文化认同的组成部分，以此作为成功驾驭工程文化的一种手段。这被称为“认同割裂”，并假设它与工程教育和实践中的坚持性负相关。要实现上述目标，我们需要调查学生和教职员工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，将定性和定量技术结合起来，以提供更全面的了解。到赠款结束时，将实现以下目标：(I)确定来自边缘化社区的工程学和计算机科学专业学生的身份认同分离主题，这些主题可能会影响成为工程学专业人员的道路；以及(Ii)确定教师对跨越差异的关系和结构性力量的理解在帮助或阻碍来自边缘化群体的学生成功地通过成为工程学专业人员的道路上所起的作用。该项目将在三个非常不同的机构合作实施--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I机构)和德克萨斯大学泛美分校(西班牙裔服务机构)。这三所学校服务于不同的学生群体和地区，但很可能有相同的身份分离表现，这影响了工程和计算机科学专业的学生的成功和坚持不懈。

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.