A Situated, Intersectional Analysis of Gendered and Racialized Mathematics Experiences Among Successful Latin@ Undergraduate Engineering Students

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Abstract
Latin@s had the largest increase of nearly 75% in engineering degree completion yet remain largely underrepresented with women outnumbered by men. With mathematics as a gatekeeper to advanced engineering courses, the mathematics experiences of Latin@ students must be closely examined to better understand their success in navigating and persisting in undergraduate STEM education. This phenomenological study used intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) from critical race theory (CRT) to examine mathematics success as a gendered and racialized experience among five Latin@ women and men as undergraduate engineers at a large, predominantly white university. Findings shared in this poster focus on three Latin@ men’s strategies of mathematics success including the formation of peer networks, making connections with mathematics teachers, and “representing” Latin@s in STEM to challenge discourses of not being “college material” and not good at mathematics. Implications are raised for research and practice in undergraduate mathematics education to enhance Latin@s and other marginalized groups’ learning opportunities in engineering and STEM large.

Literature Review
Mathematics is well documented as a gendered and racialized space for marginalized populations including African Americans, Latin@s, and women (McGee & Martin, 2011; Mendick, 2006; Oppland-Cordell, 2014). Issues of race and gender, however, have largely been studied separately with minimal insight on how their intersections lead to varying mathematics experiences. Scholars, therefore, are calling for intersectional analyses that highlight variation among Latin@s and other underrepresented groups at different intersections of their identities (Esmonde, Brodie, Dookie, & Takeuchi, 2009; Martin, 2009).

Rasmussen & Wawro (under review) argue that equity considerations are the “next steps” in understanding how instruction can be more responsive to the diversity in undergraduate mathematics classrooms. Of all racial groups, Latin@s had the largest increase of nearly 75% for engineering degree completion in the last 15 years (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2015). The rate of men outnumbering women as engineering degree holders has been the most consistent among Latin@s (NSF, 2015). The experiences of Latin@s in negotiating their multiple social identities with mathematics success are underexplored (Varley Gutiérrez, Willey, & Khisty, 2011). With calculus as a gatekeeper into advanced STEM courses, the extent to which undergraduate mathematics is a gendered and racialized experience for Latin@ engineering students must be examined to better support their retention and success as well as broaden their opportunities for co-constructing positive mathematics and social identities.

Research Questions
To address this need for more nuanced understandings of undergraduate mathematics as a gendered and racialized experience, this phenomenological study completed during the 2014-2015 school year used intersectionality from CRT and Latin@ critical race theory (LatCrit; Bernal, 2002) to characterize mathematics success among five Latin@ college engineering students (2 women and 3 men) at a large, predominantly white university. A three-tiered analytical framework from prior work (Leyva, under review) was used to address the following research questions on institutional, interpersonal, and ideological influences on the Latin@ participants’ mathematics experiences and identity development:

• What university structures afforded or limited opportunities for mathematics success among the Latin@ undergraduate engineering students?
• How did relationships and interactions in and out of the undergraduate mathematics classroom shape their success?
• To what extent did these students raise, respond to, and/or negotiate racial and gendered discourses in mathematics? What strategies did these students use in navigating them?

Methods
Below are the four data sources collected with their corresponding dates of collection and units of analysis:
• Mathematics autobiographies: Collected prior to the first individual interview in September 2014; Analyzed for “turning points,” or critical experiences, in mathematics

• Field observations:
Two 80-minute mathematics lectures: Collected monthly; Analyzed for teacher and student interactions, student participation, and quality of instruction
Two 80-minute problem solving recitations/workshops: Collected monthly; Analyzed for problem solving interactions and quality of instruction
Mathematics department: Collected on an ongoing basis; Analyzed for institutional space including artifacts, classroom structures, website content

• Semi-structured interviews: Collected every 2 months; Analyzed meanings of being Latin@ and successful and stimulus recall from autobiography and observations
• Focus group discussion: Collected in March 2015; Analyzed for stimulus recall of critical moments across participants’ mathematics classroom observations

Data triangulation allowed for the analytical construction of mathematics counter-stories among Latin@ participants (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Phenomenology guided analysis by focusing on intersectional variation across participants’ experiences to detail the phenomenon of mathematics success among these Latin@ undergraduate engineering students (Bowleg, 2008; Creswell, 2013).

Findings & Educational Significance
This poster presents findings specific to the experiences of three Latin@ men who participated in the study. Using the three-tiered analytical framework from prior work (Leyva, under review), findings explore the institutional, interpersonal, and ideological influences on the three Latin@ men’s undergraduate mathematics success as engineering majors. At the institutional level, this study shed light on how colleges and universities play an important role in carving institutional spaces that facilitate the formation of peer networks among Latin@s and other marginalized groups in STEM that are often lost after high school (Walker, 2006). While these networks were critical to participants’ high school mathematics success, it was often left up to the students to rebuild such supportive connections on their own outside of university spaces such as Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers meetings and study hour sessions. The participants’ success in building networks as engineering students, thus, challenges Treisman’s (1992) argument that marginalized groups do not form such sustained peer connections and thus raise considerations of how STEM support programs can leverage students’ networking building capacities in their initiatives.

Interpersonally, the Latin@ men’s strong relationships with college instructors who prioritized student-centered learning and established welcoming classroom environments point to the need of future research that explores the relational dimensions of instruction in undergraduate mathematics education. Such work can further strengthen the sustained forms of academic and social support for Latin@s and other underrepresented populations across the P-16 mathematics pipeline (Battey, 2013; Battey, Neal, Leyva, & Adams-Wiggins, accepted; Brown, 2002). The study’s intersectional analysis offers insight into the strategies that the Latin@ men adopted in negotiating gendered and racial discourses of mathematics success with their identities as Latin@ men. This extends prior work on mathematics discursively shaped as a white and masculinized space (Leyva, under review; Martin, 2009; Mendick, 2006). By documenting the intersectionality of the Latin@ men’s mathematics experiences, this study shed light on how mathematics ability and academic success are instead feminized among Latin@s in light of discourses of Latin@ men dropping out of school and not being “college material.” The Latin@ men discussed their sense of responsibility in “representing” as successful engineering students as well as serving as a resource in their predominantly Latin@ hometown communities for others who wish to pursue a STEM degree or higher education in general.

Author

• Luis Antonio Leyva, Rutgers University