Literacies in Engineering: Forms of Capital Used in Immigrant Youths’ Engineering Designs

• In Event: Embodied Literacies Across Contexts

Abstract

In this nine-month multiple case study, we traced the activity of three groups of Latino/a immigrants as they selected a problem in their communities and addressed them through engineering design processes. Specifically, we documented the literacies and other forms of capital that supported them in producing their designs. After using constant comparative analysis to analyze bi-monthly group meetings and monthly interviews with each participant, we found that the adolescents used multiple forms of embodied capital and literacies, such as workplace literacies, throughout the engineering design process. The findings from this study point toward ways in which high school engineering teachers can teach engineering from “points of cultural intersection” by connecting immigrants’ local/transnational literacies and social practices to engineering-specific literacies.

Authors

• Amy Alexandra Wilson, Utah State University

• Allen Smithee, Utah State University

• Joel Alejandro Mejia, West Virginia University

• Indhira Maria Hasbun, Utah State University