An Investigation of the Perspectives of Women of Color on the Cultures of Undergraduate Engineering

Abstract

The cultures of a learning environment shape undergraduate engineers into professionals. In undergraduate engineering in the United States, culture impacts students differently. Students, at Primarily White Institutions (PWIs), who embody identities divergent from the majority population of white men, experience undergraduate engineering cultures that constrain their agency. These groups are structurally marginalized. Because of their non-dominant position in the engineering environment, structurally marginalized students have a unique vantage point on culture. My dissertation investigates the unique vantage point of Women of Color, a group of students who are structurally marginalized at research-intensive (R1) PWIs. The purpose of my study is to leverage the unique standpoint of undergraduate Women of Color in engineering to uncover their qualitatively different experiences and perceptions of undergraduate engineering culture. To address this purpose, my research question is: What are the qualitatively different ways that undergraduate Women of Color perceive and experience undergraduate engineering cultures at R1 PWIs? I used sensitizing concepts of structure, culture, and agency from Archer's Social Realist Theory to guide a phenomenographic investigation of students' varied perceptions of undergraduate engineering cultures. I conducted semi-structured interviews, containing two think-aloud activities, with 24 undergraduate Women of Color across nine engineering disciplines at six large R1 PWIs in the United States. Using phenomenographic data analysis, I developed an outcome space organizing participants' 38 distinct perceptions of undergraduate engineering cultures into five categories of description: dominant norm, alternate norm, hybrid norm, counter norm, and transformational norm. These categories of description spanned 11 subcultures. My results indicate that the dominant norms of whiteness, masculinity, technical social dualism, depoliticization, theory-focused, hardness, and engineering exceptionalism are more embedded in undergraduate engineering culture than meritocracy, achievement, competition, and individualism. My study also reveals that constructed norms, such as collaboration and connectedness, are already strongly present in undergraduate engineering and can be leveraged to transform undergraduate engineering into a supportive environment where all students can thrive.