2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Over the last few decades, there has been a push to prepare more students for engineering careers to meet demands for a larger workforce and to broaden participation. Though there have been substantial efforts dedicated towards these goals, many groups remain underrepresented and marginalized in engineering. Additionally, few efforts towards broadening participation in the field of engineering education have specifically addressed how place, or where a student is from, impacts educational access and opportunities especially as it relates to academic preparation resources, educational pathways, and careers in engineering. Place and geography are particularly important for rural students and communities because of the many policies and systems that have been designed for nonrural places which often means that rural places do not have the same access to resources and support for education. As such, many rural students are underrepresented in higher education and in particular engineering.

This presentation will shed light on the impacts of place on efforts in engineering education through the lenses of rurality and spatial justice to focus on how rural students might access various engineering pathways. Tying together findings from various research studies focused on rurality and experiences in rural spaces, this presentation will highlight considerations for research, policy, and practice for engineering education as it relates to rural places, students, and communities. First, focusing on elements of practice including teaching, outreach, and engagement, this presentation will discuss how we can better recognize rural contexts and pay attention to the specific needs of rural students in classrooms in K-12 and higher education contexts. Second, considerations for policy will be presented as it pertains to state and national educational contexts and also institutional contexts. Finally, considerations for research will be presented to include how engineering education research and research on broadening participation can be expanded through using a lens of spatial justice to specifically account for how systemic factors due to place and space might impact students’ abilities to pursue engineering pathways.

This presentation is timely and relevant given the increased focus on rural STEM education pathways and workforce development efforts from funding sources, like the National Science Foundation, and local, state, and federal governments.