A Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Black Immigrant Women in Undergraduate Engineering in the Southwestern United States

• In Event: Understanding [Racial] Identity Formation Among African Immigrant Youth and Emergent Adults

Abstract

Purpose of Study

This empirical research study in progress focuses on the politicized, racialized, and gendered dimensions of the presumably “objective” discipline of engineering. This work utilizes case studies to better understand how immigrants use their cultural epistemologies to attain undergraduate degrees in engineering. The authors of this project use a qualitative approach involving 40 interviews with current undergraduate engineering students of a large public university in the southwestern United States.

Theoretical Frameworks: Critical Race Feminism and Transnationalism

Both Critical Race Feminism (CRF) and Transnationalism Theory (TT) are used in this work. Critical Race Feminism (CRF) highlights the prominent status of race in the United States (Hughes, 1945). Even though Black immigrants are often members of the racial and/or ethnic majority in their countries of origin, they are immediately “othered” and “racialized” upon arrival in America. CRF also highlights the need for the interrogation of gender oppression, helping us unpack the racialized experiences of Black immigrant women in educational spaces. CRF also recognizes that, in the United States, racial and gender oppression are inextricably linked (Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010). TT is used to further nuance the interpretation of Black immigrant women’s experiences and persistence in engineering. Transnationalism is fundamentally a theory about social relations, positing that immigrants establish and maintain social relationships that link their country of origin to their country of settlement. This results in a forging of social connections across political, cultural, and geographic borders (Schiller et al., 1992).

Methods and Data Sources

A qualitative, case study research design is used with students from a large public university in the southwestern United States. Data are being collected through interviews with students from four departments within the university’s schools of engineering. Interview transcripts serve as the primary source of data and will be analyzed through three rounds of textual coding (Hunter et al., 2019).

Preliminary Results

Data collection is still in progress, therefore, analyzed data are not currently available. However, the authors have received grant support for this work and are planning to have all data collection and analysis completed by the time of the AERA 2021 conference.

Scholarly Significance

Ultimately, we expect this research to contribute to debates about the nexus of race, gender, and ethnic/national identity. Unpacking the experiences of Black immigrant women is worthwhile because their strategies of success will provide insight for program and curriculum development that supports more inclusive learning environments. Studying the persistence strategies of Black immigrant women is important as STEM continues to be a growing sector of the American economy; the U.S. Department of Education estimates that STEM jobs have increased 14% from 2010-2020. It is imperative that underrepresented students have full access to the growing job market, and asset-based education research (Tierney, 1999; Yosso, 2005), in conjunction with a multitude of equitable policy changes, is one way to ensure this happens.

Authors

• Meseret F. Hailu, Arizona State University

• Brooke Coley, Arizona State University Polytechnic