2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

“Studies in the Strategies of Overcomers”: Literature Review of the Experiences of High-achieving Black Male Undergraduate Engineering Students

Presented at Minoritization Processes and Equity in Engineering Education

Many investigators have focused on the experiences of Black and African-American students, but these explorations often do not focus on either Black or African-American men or the experiences of high-achieving Black or African-American male students. The objective of this literature review is to explore the ways the experiences of high-achieving Black and African-American male students have been constructed in the literature. The purpose for this exploration is to identify the strategies these students use to successfully create positive professional identities and construct a trajectory towards the mainstream of their chosen professional communities. Several inter-related lines of inquiry are explored. Some example questions guiding our reading of the literature include: How do black men perceive or experience academic socialization? What funds of knowledge, community assets, or counter-perspectives do they create? What obstacles must they overcome? How have they created communities of belonging that exist within and transcend their institutional contexts? How can we best serve these students as engineering educators? This paper presents a selective literature review guided by these questions, and concludes with a brief discussion of potential implications for engineering educators.

Authors

Dr. Royce A. Francis http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-8240-4903 The George Washington University [biography]

Dr. Royce Francis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering. His overall research vision is to conduct research, teaching, and service that facilitates sustainable habitation of the built environment. This vision involves three thrusts: 1.) infrastructure management, including sustainability, resilience, and risk analysis; 2.) regulatory risk assessment and policy-focused research, especially for environmental contaminants and infrastructure systems; and, 3.) engineering education research exploring the linkages between professional identity formation and engineering judgment. Dr. Francis earned the Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and the B.S. in Civil Engineering from Howard University.
Dr. LaKeisha McClary The George Washington University [biography]

Dr. LaKeisha McClary is a chemistry education researcher who investigates students' understandings of foundational chemistry concepts. Her professional interests have broadened to exploring ways to help all students attain their own levels of success in introductory chemistry classes while the slow work of systemic change is accomplished.

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