CAREER: BLACK-LATINX RESOURCES IN COMMUNITY-LED ENGINEERING: INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

工程公司为不同人群开发解决方案，为了做好这项工作，我们需要反映他们所服务社区的工程师。然而，许多群体，如拉丁裔/é和黑人-拉丁裔/é，在该学科中的代表性仍然严重不足。传统上，来自代表性不足群体的学生感到被同化的压力，因为他们自己的经历很少在课堂上或职业中被合法化，导致工程学和社会错失了从这些个人可以贡献的创造性见解中受益的机会。这导致了不完美的工程设计解决方案，给那些被忽视的人和整个社会带来了现实生活中的后果。因此，工程师教育需要明确纳入学生及其社区的观点，为拓宽人们对工程师意味着什么以及谁可以成为工程师的概念铺平道路。所有学生都有生活经验，他们可以在学习工程能力的过程中建立起这些经验。然而，在经验和工程之间建立联系的学习过程究竟是如何运作的，目前还不是很清楚。对于像Black-Latinx/é这样的学习者来说尤其如此，他们经常被忽视，被忽视，很少成为工程实践和研究的中心。在三个地理和人口结构不同的机构背景下，这个职业项目将发展对学习者如何在工程实践和社区实践(包括语言和文化)之间建立联系的基础理解，并将把所学到的经验纳入开发社区主导的工程学教学方法。该项目将包括来自所有种族和族裔的学习者，但也将特别关注黑人拉丁裔学生。该项目与扩大工程参与度计划的目标一致，旨在通过研究和合作改变学习环境，让传统上服务不足的人群参与和融入STEM。该项目将在三门社区主导的课程中让学生参与工程思维和实践(例如，应用工程设计原则)。学生们将学习做工程的方法，因为他们受到非洲裔拉丁人的现实、历史和传统的启发，参与到现实世界的例子中。这项工作将借鉴工程学中正确的存在框架和学习理论。通过三个以黑人拉丁裔社区为重点实施社区主导的工程方法的机构的比较案例研究，该项目将回答关于社区实践、学生的学习和身份发展以及学习环境的三组问题：(1)黑人拉丁裔社区中哪些语言和文化实践与工程实践有关？(2)黑人拉丁裔学生和其他不同种族和族裔背景的人有哪些语言和文化实践，在社区主导的工程课程中发展？(3)在不同的学习环境中，哪些特征和资源会影响工程专业黑人拉丁裔学生的发展，以及这些资源如何支持学习者？为了回答这些问题，该项目将建立在与语言和文化在人们如何学习和分析对每个案例的调查、采访、观察和日记条目的反应中所扮演的角色相关的理论基础上。这些数据将使用各种技术进行分析，从从扎根的理论传统到因子分析和方差分析的恒定比较方法。除了参与机构的七名教员和直接参与社区主导的工程课程的120名学生外，该项目还将与研究生和合作大学的300多名工程教员、K-12教师以及更广泛的社区分享教学方法的理论成果和设计原则。这一传播旨在使全国各地的教职员工能够适应这些想法，为那些可能在STEM中看不到自己的黑人拉丁裔学生和其他群体的合法存在创造学习环境。该项目由STEM教育中的种族平等活动(EDU种族平等)提供资金。该活动支持研究和实践项目，调查种族平等因素如何影响科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教育和劳动力的改善。获奖项目寻求集中受STEM企业内部系统性不平等影响最大的个人、社区和机构的声音、知识和经验。这项活动符合NSF的核心价值，即支持来自全国不同人口群体、地区和组织类型的杰出研究人员和创新思想家。EDU各地的项目为种族平等活动提供资金，以表彰其项目与理事会四个部门的集体研究和开发努力的一致性。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Engineering develops solutions for diverse populations and to do this well we need engineers that reflect the communities they serve. However, many groups, such as Latinx/é and Black-Latinx/é, remain severely underrepresented in the discipline. Traditionally, students from underrepresented groups have felt pressure to assimilate because their own experiences are rarely legitimized neither in the classroom nor in the profession, resulting in missed opportunities for engineering and society to benefit from the creative insights these individuals can contribute. This leads to imperfect engineering design solutions with real-life consequences for those who are overlooked and for society at large. The education of engineers thus needs to explicitly incorporate the perspectives of students and their communities to pave the way for broadening notions of what it means to be an engineer and who can become one. All students have life experiences that they can build on as they learn engineering competencies. However, it is not yet well understood how exactly the learning process of developing connections between experiences and engineering works. This is particularly true for learners such as Black-Latinx/é who are often made invisible, overlooked, and rarely the center of engineering practice and research. Across three geographically and demographically diverse institutional contexts, this CAREER project will develop foundational understandings of how learners make connections between engineering practices and community practices (including language and culture) and will incorporate the lessons learned into developing a community-led pedagogical approach in engineering. The project will include learners from all races and ethnicities but also pay particular attention to Black-Latinx/é students. This project aligns with the Broadening Participation in Engineering program goal to transform learning environments for the participation and inclusion of traditionally underserved populations in STEM through research and collaborations.This project will engage students in engineering thinking and practices (e.g., applying principles of engineering design) within three community-led courses. Students will learn ways of doing engineering as they engage in real-world examples inspired by the realities, histories and traditions of Afro-Latinx/é people. The work will draw on the rightful presence framework and theories of learning in engineering. Through three comparative case studies of institutions implementing a community-led engineering approach focused on Black-Latinx/é communities, this project will answer three sets of questions on community practices, students’ learning and identity development, as well as learning environments: (1) What kinds of language and cultural practices in Black-Latinx/é communities are associated with engineering practices? (2) What language and cultural practices do Black-Latinx/é students, and others of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, develop in community-led engineering courses? (3) What features and resources in the distinct learning environments influence the development of the rightful presence of Black-Latinx/é students in engineering and how these resources support learners? To answer these questions, the project will build on theories related to the roles that language and culture play in how people learn and analyze responses to surveys, interviews, observations and journal entries for each of the cases. The data will be analyzed using a variety of techniques, ranging from constant comparative approach from the grounded theory tradition to factor analysis and analysis of variance. Beyond the seven faculty members at participating institutions and 120 students directly engaging in the community-led engineering courses, the project will share the theoretical findings and design principles of the pedagogical approach with graduate students and the 300+ engineering faculty members at the partner universities, K-12 teachers, as well as the broader community. This dissemination intends to empower faculty and teachers across the country to adapt these ideas in creating learning environments for the rightful presence of Black-Latinx students and other groups who may not see themselves reflected in STEM. This project is funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education activity (EDU Racial Equity). The activity supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. This activity aligns with NSF’s core value of supporting outstanding researchers and innovative thinkers from across the Nation's diversity of demographic groups, regions, and types of organizations. Programs across EDU contribute funds to the Racial Equity activity in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate.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.