Abstract
<p class="Body">Less than 20% of undergraduates earning a degree in engineering are women, and even more alarming is minority women earn a mere 3.1% of those degrees. This paper reports on a qualitative study examining Latinas’ identity development toward and in undergraduate engineering and computer science studies using a sociocultural theory of learning. Three major themes emerged from the data analysis: 1) Engineering support clusters as affinity spaces contributing to development of engineering identities; 2) Mexican or Mexican-American family contributing to persistence in engineering; and 3) Equity in access to engineering education. Engineering support clusters and Mexican heritage family support were vital in developing and sustaining Latinas’ engineering identity. Additionally, data supported the idea that Latinas at the research site experienced gender and ethnic equity in their access to engineering education. The authors call for a more gender-inclusive engineering education and situating education experiences in more effective learning approaches (i.e., critical thinking in community and cultural contexts), which deserves attention in order to move engineering away from a ubiquitous view of inflexibility regarding women in engineering.</p>
Highlights
The disciplines of engineering and computer science have served as preeminent and prestigious fields of study, yet historically women have been underrepresented in these fields
The role of social, or cultural, capital is important for Hispanic women, or Latinas, to counter this lack of confidence and persistent in their engineering studies (Martin, Simmons, & Yu, 2013). This notion is supported by the findings of Samuelson and Litzler (2016) who examined the types of cultural capital that Black and Latino students in universities across the United States employed for success in engineering education, and found navigational and aspirational capital to be most important for these students
The study reported in this paper was designed to further understand the ways educational institutions may help recruit and retain women and other minorities in engineering and other STEM fields
Summary
The disciplines of engineering and computer science have served as preeminent and prestigious fields of study, yet historically women have been underrepresented in these fields. In 2012, 19.2% of engineering degrees were awarded to females with a mere 3.1% of these awarded to women from underrepresented minorities (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2015). The low representation of women, and Latinas has been the topic of inquiry by various organizations and institutions that have aggressively reached out to females (National Research Council, 1991; NSF, 2003) without significant impact. Contributing to this national effort are exemplary programs, such as the Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Gates et al, 2011), the National Center for Women in Information Technology, WEPAN, Grace Hopper Regional Consortia, CRA-W, ACM-W, and Tapestry. Studies investigating minorities and women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) focus on equity of access and are looking at data in broad terms, rather than Latinas in engineering and computer science (hereafter referenced as engineering)
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