2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A Narrative Analysis of Black, Latino/a/x, and Indigenous Students’ Sense of Belonging in Engineering at a Predominantly White Institution

Presented at Virtual Mentoring Program, Listening to Those That Matter, Moving Beyond Research, and Career Outcomes Tracking

Though studies have examined how unequal outcomes manifest for Black, Latino/a/x, and Indigenous (BLI) engineering students and how to address these inequalities, not enough work to date has privileged BLI student narratives to understand how they make meaning in the engineering environment given their unique situated histories. To begin to fill this gap, we use narrative analysis to unpack and give voice to the experiences of BLI students at a Predominately White Institution and explore how BLI students make meaning of their experiences in engineering. Data were derived from a multi-institutional mixed methods study that engages in an educational improvement activity and follows students longitudinally across their college experience. This study is based on interviews at two timepoints with eight BLI participants. Narrative analysis was employed to understand and construct stories regarding the evolution of how participants interpreted their experiences of how sense of belonging was created, enhanced, or impeded within engineering environments. Findings from this study indicate that engagement in a range of communities can help to mitigate the negative effects of identity-related obstacles and can enhance BLI students’ sense of belonging. Participants found and engaged in community in a variety of ways, through formal and informal capacities and in both individual and group contexts. Our results also indicate that despite the additional barriers that BLI students experience, they continue to espouse the meritocratic belief that anyone, regardless of identity, has an equal opportunity to become an engineer. The implications of this belief for BLI student success are discussed in the paper.

Authors

Gerard Dorvè-Lewis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5542-2057 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Gerard Dorvè-Lewis (he/him) is a higher education Ph.D. student and scholar at the University of Pittsburgh. His broad research interests include emerging adulthood, equity, inclusion, and justice in higher education, first-generation college students, Black students, sense of belonging, and student success. Before beginning his doctoral journey, he worked full-time in student affairs at the University of Florida, informing his research interests. At the University of Florida, he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in family, youth and community sciences.
Danielle Vegas Lewis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7266-6328 SUNY Fredonia [biography]

Danielle Vegas Lewis is a doctoral candidate in the University at Buffalo's Higher Education program. She earned a B.A. in Political Science from SUNY Cortland in 2005 and a M.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina in 2007. She is currently the SUNY PRODiG Fellow at SUNY Fredonia where she teaches sociology and gender courses. She also serves as a Research Associate for Dr. Linda DeAngelo at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research agenda aims to understand and disrupt the ways in which socially constructed identities allow for the reproduction of social inequality, with a focus on understanding the ways institutions of higher education and other social structures challenge or uphold hegemonic environments in which majority populations accumulate power that harms students underrepresented in certain contexts.
Maricela Bañuelos University of California, Irvine [biography]

Maricela Bañuelos received her Sociology B.A. from the University of California, (UC) Santa Barbara in 2016, and graduated with Summa Cum Laude. She received her master’s in Educational Policy and Social Context from UC Irvine in 2020 and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Sociology at UC Irvine with an emphasis in Chicano Latino studies. Maricela was awarded the Ford Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in 2021, to support her doctoral research on issues of access and persistence in higher education. Her research centers the social mobility of first-generation college students, low-income students, and underrepresented students of color.
Prof. Natascha Trellinger Buswell http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8503-5787 University of California, Irvine [biography]

Natascha Trellinger Buswell is an associate professor of teaching in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her B.S. in aerospace engineering at Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in engineering education at Purdue University. She is particularly interested in inclusive teaching conceptions and methods and graduate level engineering education.
Dr. Linda DeAngelo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8508-5909 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Linda DeAngelo is Associate Professor of Higher Education, Center for Urban Education Faculty Fellow, and affiliated faculty in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. DeAngelo studies social stratification, investigating how social inequities are produced, maintained, and interrupted. Currently her scholarship focuses on access to and engagement in faculty mentorship, the pathway into and through graduate education, and gender and race in engineering.

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Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
race/ethnicity
undergraduate