2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 361: Reframing Racial Equity Year 2: Examining Script of Whiteness

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This EHR Racial Equity project, sponsored by National Science Foundation’s Directorate for STEM Education (EDU)/ Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE), aims to shift the way faculty understand racial equity in engineering education. Rather than treating “underrepresentation” as a problem that needs to be solved (representation is not the same as power, after all), the literature illustrates that the culture of engineering creates an inhospitable environment for students and faculty of color. The invisible and normalized nature of whiteness has led to systemic barriers that are consistently ignored; making it difficult to identify, challenge, and (re)imagine racial equity in engineering. In order to challenge the hegemonic discourse of whiteness, engineering faculty must develop the ability to see and name these invisible forces. Our milestones for achieving this goal include: 1) conducting a collaborative autoethnography to identify a preliminary set of the scripts of whiteness in engineering education; 2) creating a faculty development program focusing on fostering and developing critical consciousness to reveal these underpinnings of engineering culture; and 3) engaging engineering faculty to critically reflect on their own positionality, question structures of power (such as the social, cultural, historical and political effects of whiteness in engineering), and become change agents for racial equity in engineering education.

In our first year, we focused on disseminating the idea behind the project: that our collective understanding of how to understand and tackle racial equity can and should be reframed to interrogate whiteness. The PIs presented 3 invited talks, published an editorial for the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), and produced four conference publications around the first stage of our work. In terms of new research, we began a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) within the PI team. The collaborative autoethnography produced mostly internal works (essays, journal entries, reflections, etc.), which will serve as the data we will mine for the creation of the transformative learning experience we will develop beginning in Year 2. This poster and associated paper will highlight our activities from Year 2 including hiring a postdoctoral scholar, regular meetings, detailed reflections and initial findings from our CAE that begin to reveal scripts of whiteness.

Authors

Dr. Diana A. Chen http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-3616-1538 University of San Diego [biography]

Diana A. Chen, PhD is an Associate Professor and one of the founding faculty members of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. She earned her BS in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, and MS and PhD in Civil Engineering from Clemson University. In collaboration with colleagues, Dr. Chen is designing a new engineering curriculum to educate changemakers who understand that engineering is an inherently socio-technical activity. Her passion is studying and encouraging culture change in engineering curricula and spaces to shift engineering to be a field more inclusive of diversity in all forms. Her scholarly interests include engineering education that contextualizes engineering sciences and design, exploring engineering boundaries for inclusive pedagogy, and sustainability and bio-inspired design in the built environment.
Dr. Joel Alejandro Mejia http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3908-9930 The University of Texas at San Antonio [biography]

Dr. Joel Alejandro (Alex) Mejia is an Associate Professor with joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He received his B.S. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from The University of Texas at El Paso in 2007, his M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from The University of Utah in 2013, and his Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Utah State University in 2014. His research has contributed to the critical analysis engineering knowledge within sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts, the impact of critical consciousness in engineering practice, and the development of culturally responsive pedagogies.
Prof. Gordon D Hoople http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2663-4664 University of San Diego [biography]

Dr. Gordon D. Hoople is an assistant professor and one of the founding faculty members of integrated engineering at the University of San Diego. He is passionate about creating engaging experiences for his students. His work is primarily focused on two ar
Dr. R. Jamaal Downey [biography]

Dr. Downey is an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture in Education from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Dr. Downey focuses on critical qualitative inquiry with a discerning eye toward humanizing and culturally sustaining pedagogies. Currently, he is focused on uncovering and exposing scripts of whiteness within engineering education with an end goal to devise faculty development.

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