Latinx Persistence in Undergraduate Engineering/Computer Science: Identity and Institutional Resources

• In Event: Using an Identity Lens to Explore Latinx Undergraduate Pathways Into and Through STEM

Abstract

Drawing on one year of intensive ethnographic data collection in Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Computer Science (CS) at a Hispanic Serving Institution on the US-Mexico border, this paper examines the key influences shaping the decisions of 18 Latinx undergraduates to pursue and persist in engineering/CS. This study is situated within the context of continued under-representation of Latinx in engineering/CS degrees awarded nationwide, as well as higher-than-average attrition rates in the transition from degree completion into the profession.

Theoretical Framework

In this study, we employ a sociocultural lens on identity to highlight the ways in which individuals learn ways of “saying-doing-being-valuing-believing” through participation in socially-situated activities and practices (Gee, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991), in this case, ME/CS. The notion of identity capital (Cote & Levine, 2002) was central to our study, which looked at the identity resources (Nasir & Cooks, 2009) and institutional resources that enabled or constrained students’ decisions to pursue and persist in engineering.

Methods and Data Sources

This paper is part of a larger NSF-funded study utilizing ethnographic methods (Atkinson & Hammersley, 2007) to uncover the barriers and opportunities faced by 27 Latinx students in ME/CS as they transitioned from senior capstone courses and graduation into the profession. For this paper, we focused on 18 participants (6 women, 12 men) from Y1 data collection (2017-2018). Three key sources of data were utilized: participant-observation (over 75 hours); in-depth interviews (52 total); and artifacts. For the purposes of this analysis, we relied on coding of in-depth interviews and fieldnotes using an open- and focused-coding approach (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, 2011).

Findings

Four kinds of identity resources emerged from our analysis of the data: affinity, aspirational, positional, and relational. Affinity resources refer to the types of building/tinkering activities that students engaged in; these resources frequently signaled a positive influence on students’ decision to study ME/CS. Aspirational resources refer to the goals and dreams students articulated; these were typically economic-, sociopolitical-, and career-focused. Positional resources referred to the ways that students were positioned by authority figures; being positioned as “good at math,” for instance, yielded a strongly positive influence on students’ pathways. Relational resources referred to the key people that positively or negatively influenced students’ pathways.

In addition, three types of institutional resources were identified: relational, particularly teachers/mentors; pedagogical, which referred to the learning configurations of key courses; and informational, particularly with respect to the types/modes of information conveyed to students by the institution.

Scholarly Significance

This study’s use of an ethnographic and sociocultural lens to examine the lived experiences of Latinx students in engineering/CS contributes to a small but growing set of studies in this area (Tonso, 2007; Allen & Eisenhart, 2017; Author, 2018, 2019), with the larger aim of understanding the connection among students’ identities, learning, and retention in (or attrition from) the field. Findings from this study have implications both in and beyond engineering/CS, and can inform institutional efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented students, particularly Latinx students.

Authors

• Erika L. Mein, The University of Texas - El Paso

• Helena Mucino-Guerra, University of Texas - El Paso