2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

There have been efforts to increase the number of marginalized populations in the field of engineering, with limited success. With several barriers, including navigating the current funding landscape, there hasn’t been substantial and lasting change proportional to the work that has been done in this area. Previous efforts to effectuate a sustainable change have grouped all BIPOC together, without considering nuanced deviations amongst varying cultures and ethnicities.

The goal of this paper is to survey the existing research on Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander inclusion in engineering education. This literature review focuses on analyzing current, more targeted approaches to identify an ideal balance between specificity and accurate representation. The goal is to be specific enough to provide representation for underrepresented groups, without having to be an expert on every culture and identity.

A search was conducted in the primary engineering education publication outlets Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conference proceedings. Search terms were intentionally broad including “Native Hawaiian representation” and “Pacific Islander representation.” The papers returned were filtered by content to determine if they were substantively about Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders. Included papers were analyzed based on their methods and arguments.

Despite strong efforts by isolated researchers, the literature as a whole hasn’t yet achieved an ideal balance between specificity and representation that has the potential to improve student outcomes. Some of the literature has too narrow of a focus that has limited transferability to other groups, while other papers are unproductively grouping all Indigenous people together. Without a collective shared understanding or framework, the research findings tend to pull in many different directions. There are promising examples of programs that are integrating Indigenous people and ways of knowing that benefit engineering students and faculty who are able to participate.

The success of engineering education as a whole depends on ensuring equitable access for all groups, in such a way that recognizes their complex identities and holistic personhood. Future work could include expanding search terms, both in terms of identities and STEM education as whole. A framework for equitably integrating this work could bolster current and future representation efforts.