Empowering Engineering Scholar-Activists through Community-driven Research Experiences

尽管努力推进大学校园的多样性和包容性资源，工程文化仍然是一个冷冰冰的的气候与边缘化身份的学生。虽然以前的研究集中在调查来自代表性不足的人口的工程专业学生的经验，他们在很大程度上忽略了学生在多重边缘化身份的交叉点，他们往往缺乏重大的行动，以帮助创造更具包容性的环境。这个项目将采取下一步行动，不仅仅是描述边缘化的工程专业学生的经验。这项工作的最终目标将是通过发展一个由代表性不足的工程专业学生和盟友组成的协作的、学生驱动的研究社区来改变工程文化。这个社区的积极分子将利用他们对边缘化的工程学生群体的奖学金，倡导个人和机构的变化。学生将阅读和讨论相关的工程教育和社会学文献，反思自己的经验和行动，与校园内的活动家互动，对边缘化群体的工程师进行自己的研究，并领导未来的社区推广和组织工作。该项目与扩大工程参与（BPE）计划保持一致，以增强工程中代表性不足群体的多样性和包容性，特别是在其创新方法中创建包容性研究社区，这将提高代表性不足群体的学生的保留率，并可以在其他环境中复制。为了在历史上被边缘化的工程学生中培养积极分子，该项目将使学生参与一个充满活力的研究社区，在那里他们将获得支持，从事自己的本科和研究生研究项目，并扩大对工程的参与。该项目的关键组成部分将包括一个研究小组，为学生发起的定性研究提供建设性的反馈和支持，教师和研究生导师网络，期刊俱乐部公开邀请边缘化学生和盟友阅读和讨论BPE文献，并为所有工程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）通过让学生作为研究者参与研究，将学生的声音集中在研究中。(2)我们将把生活经验作为进行这项研究的重要条件。(3)我们将授权学生领导研究，这将加强他们的社会身份和潜在的活动家身份。(4)我们将把研究和行动结合起来，并准备处理内在的矛盾。为了制定这种批判性的方法和发展社会活动家，我们将使用工程教育内外的阻力和社会正义文献。围绕边缘化工程师创建以学生为中心的研究社区的整体模式具有潜在的变革性，并有可能在其他机构和其他工程学生群体中采用。该项目将培训边缘化的工程专业学生，使他们无论走到哪里都能建立社区。此外，该项目可能会通过为边缘化的工程专业学生创造额外的安全空间（并提高其可见度）来改善气候和保留率。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.