CAREER:Leveraging learning and engineering identity to broaden participation of Black males in colleges of engineering

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

In many engineering subfields, African American males are frequently underrepresented. Because of growing national engineering workforce demands, it is critical that the United States find ways to broadening participation among underrepresented groups, such as African American males. This CAREER project, which represents the largest aggregation of qualitative data on Black males in engineering graduate programs, will contribute to the field's understanding of how African American males develop their perceptions of what it means to be an engineer (i.e., develop an engineering identity). It is also likely to pinpoint key mechanisms that improve their academic retention and success in engineering, particularly at the graduate level. Further, the project proposes to contribute to the development of a new learning and identity theory on Black men in engineering. The findings from this work have immense implications for transformative change, such as equipping Colleges of Engineering with the needed knowledge and understanding to better serve Black male graduate students and help these students to persist in engineering. Equally important, the new theory generated from this this project will offer engineering administrators, faculty, and staff important insights on how to broadening engineering participation among African American males. The qualitative interviews, resulting from this project, will provide the unique opportunity to explore the educational experiences from the perspectives of African American males (e.g., students' agency, persistence factors, etc.) while still enabling analyses of institution-specific cases (e.g., experiences of students at one institution, institutional factors that serve as supports and/or barriers to students' retention), and cross-case analyses (e.g., students' demographic information, students' experiences compared across institutions, systems and structures related to engineering identity and long-term participation, institutional best practices in retention of Black men graduate students). Through the dissemination of findings, all stakeholders (e.g., faculty members, administrators and staff, policymakers, K-12 education leaders, and students) will obtain greater insights and knowledge on Black males' unique experiences in engineering graduate programs and will become better able to serve these students as a result of obtaining this information.