2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

How Math Ed and Engineering Ed Talk About Responsiveness and Equity: A Narrative Literature Review

This conceptual paper explores the potential and constraints for creating responsive and accessible mathematics curriculum within engineering educational pathways.

Within engineering education, mathematics is positioned in a number of key ways: as a prerequisite to engineering (e.g., Calculus), as a skills gap that forms an identity (i.e., calculus-readiness), and as a shared abstract language for representing engineering concepts (e.g., using mathematical symbolic language in a statics class). For engineering education research and practice, the mathematics realm is typically secondary, not primary. Within mathematics education, however, mathematics is the primary investigation.

Mathematics can also become a major equity barrier for engineering students whose high school preparation did not offer advanced mathematics courses. About 50% of high schools nationally offer AP Calculus, while only 38% of schools with majority Black, Latinx, and/or low income offer AP Calculus (U.S.Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2018). At the university where I am now located, with a large Hispanic population from low-income and rural communities, over 90% of students are not able to place into Calculus in the first semester with many placing in Algebra or college math. The extremely long math journeys become a barrier for these students becoming engineers. Further, while the local university has a lot of insight and direction for creating more responsive curriculum for engineering students, the relatively abstract topics of college mathematics sequence may not lend themselves as well to crafting education that supports students funds of knowledge or creates responsiveness and inclusivity.

This conceptual paper will interrogate the ways mathematics education research and engineering education research treats mathematics, to look for insight into issues of creating more equitable and responsive mathematics education for engineers. My questions to focus the study are:

Overarching questions: What are the differences between mathematics education literature and engineering education literature and how can they be leveraged to inform engineering mathematics / math within the engineering education pathway? What ideas from mathematics education research can be borrowed from and inspired to help inform engineering education mathematical research?

Specific questions:
- What are the ways mathematics and math learners are positioned in engineering education and mathematics education respectively? (For example, positioning as a gateway prerequisite, as central curricular focus, as equity challenge).
- How do mathematics educators and engineering educators seek to create responsive and equitable curricula? (For example, how do the two disciplines assess and support their students’ funds of knowledge?)

The paper will utilize a narrative literature review to characterize the differences that emerge through the investigation of the two disciplines. A focused review will look for key terms (equity, responsiveness, funds of knowledge) and broader characterizations within prominent journals such as Journal of Research in Mathematics Education and Journal of Engineering Education. It is hoped that the insights from the literature review help inform the broader research community and the design of more responsive and equitable education for universities which serve low math access / low-income students.

U.S.Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. (2018). 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection: STEM Course Taking.