Background
According to a growing body of research, many Latinas/os experience dissonance between their everyday cultural practices and the cultural practices prevalent in engineering. This dissonance contributes to many Latinas/os' sense that engineering is “not for me.”

Purpose
This study sought to explore the meaning in the relationship between engineering cultural practices and the funds of knowledge found in Latina/o adolescents' familial, community, and recreational settings.

Design/Method
This ethnographic study followed seven groups of Latina/o adolescents as they identified problems in their communities and solved them through engineering design processes. Using a modified form of constant comparative analysis, we analyzed three data sources: individual interviews, observations of group meetings, and concurrent or retrospective protocols. We developed a coding scheme that categorized the participants' funds of knowledge as they related to engineering.

Results
The participants' everyday skills and bodies of knowledge aligned with engineering practices. Specifically, their familial, community, and recreational funds of knowledge mapped onto the application of engineering design processes, systems thinking, ethical and empathetic reasoning, knowledge of production and processing, use of communication and construction tools, scientific and mathematical knowledge, and teamwork.

Conclusions
Engineering instruction for Latina/o adolescents can be reconceptualized as a third space of learning and knowing where adolescents' everyday familial, community, and recreational practices are actively solicited and connected with the cultural practices of engineering.

Latina/o Adolescents' Funds of Knowledge Related to Engineering

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jee.20190

Engineering Students' Perceptions of Problem Solving and Their Future.

In this article, the author discusses the intersectionality of mathematics experiences for two Latin@ college women pursuing mathematics-intensive STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors at a large, predominantly White university. The author employs intersectionality and poststructural theories to explore and make meaning of their experiences in relation to discourses of mathematics ability and pursuits of STEM higher education. A cross-case analysis of two Latin@ college women's counter-stories details the development of success-oriented beliefs and strategies in navigating the discourses that they encountered institutionally and interpersonally in their mathematics experiences. Implications are raised for P--16 mathematics and STEM education to broaden equitable learning opportunities for Latin@ women and other marginalized groups' construction of positive mathematics identities at intersections of gender and other social identities

/pdf/an-intersectional-analysis-of-latin-college-women-s-counter-hkkx6p6kq9.pdf

An Intersectional Analysis of Latin@ College Women's Counter-stories in Mathematics

Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Engineering (CpE) programs have similar curricula, but different demographics and student outcomes. This paper extends earlier longitudinal studies to a larger and more diverse dataset with 90 $\,$ 000 first-time-in-college and 26 $\,$ 000 transfer students who majored in engineering at USA institutions, including students who started in first-year engineering programs, those switching majors, and those transferring from other institutions. Black men and women and Asian men in engineering are strongly attracted to EE when they start in college. Black students and Asian and Hispanic men are attracted to CpE more than other engineering disciplines, but at lower rates than EE. Asian students have the highest graduation rates in EE. EE students are much more likely to graduate than CpE students. Compared to other engineering disciplines, CpE graduation rates are low for women of all races/ethnicities and Black men. Both EE and CpE lose many of those starting the programs, but switchers and transfers compensate for some of the loss. Considering Asian students and White men, switching to EE accounts for the high attrition rate from CpE, but attrition in other populations cannot be explained so easily. Trajectories of student enrollment differ by race/ethnicity. The approach used here could serve as a model for other fields studying their own demographic distributions.

Multi-Institution Study of Student Demographics and Outcomes in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the USA

Beyond pipeline and pathways: Ecosystem metrics

ichelle Madsen Camacho and Susan M. Lord released The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering in 2013. The 2017 paperback release provides a catalyst for engineering educators, field professionals, and those who study engineering education to revisit structural and cultural patterns that are changing or holding back programs from the gender parity enjoyed in most other STEM fields. The authors frame the text in critical race and Chicana feminist theory. Camacho and Lord’s use of the term “borderlands” in the title is a nod to the work of Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands/La Frontera” (1987). In Anzaldua’s semi-autobiographical work, she theorizes through essays and poems the concept of border identities and the complexities of living at the border. Identifying as a queer Chicana feminist, Anzaldua draws on the history of the U.S./Mexico border examining power and oppression across borders of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. The physical and imagined borders produce a “mezcla” or hybridity of experience that locates an actor in a liminal space between worlds. Camacho and Lord write that engineering is a borderland field. Engineering has been largely absent from primary and secondary education, as well as from the breadth of experience of nonengineering college students. Often isolated from other programs, engineering is not usually part of the college general education curriculum the way that math, biology, or even sociology might be. Furthermore, as an elite white male (straight) space, the presence of STEM-ready Latina bodies is an exponential disruption. Latina engineering students live in the in-between world: as Latina engineers, they are aberrations both in the engineering world, as well as in the communities they call home. As a white female engineer (Lord) and a Latina sociologist (Camacho), both authors experience the borderlands in their fields. Lord’s account of the importance of a feminist studies class during her graduate education hints at the importance of feminist and critical race curriculum for all (women) engineers. She wrote, “The most difficult challenges for me in graduate school were not technical but social” (p. 15). The feminist studies class allowed her to situate her personal experience in a larger context of like experiences. Sociology educators know well the power of that moment when their own students make that connection between their personal M

/pdf/the-borderlands-of-education-latinas-in-engineering-by-6be22dh1bc.pdf

Mary E Virnoche

Papers

The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering by Michelle Madsen Camacho and Susan M. Lord