"Black Girls Can Do This": Challenging Racial Inequity in Informal Engineering Through Cultural Responsiveness

• In Event: Reclaiming Educational Spaces for K–16 Black Students: Critical Race Theory as a Best Practice

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of Black adolescent girls in a predominantly White summer engineering program using a CRT lens. The program displayed structural inequity guided by Whiteness as property. Despite this, the culturally responsive nature of the engineering challenges allowed the girls to make community connections, thus increasing science value and self-efficacy (Author 1, 2020; Scott & White, 2013). Implications suggest that developing culturally responsive programs for Black Girl Identity Development in Engineering can challenge systemic racism and the normalization of White maleness in STEM.

Theoretical Framework

CRT addresses the relationship of race, racism, and power structures in U.S. society (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 1998). This work focuses on the tenets of the Whiteness as Property, which states that “the law’s construction of Whiteness defined and affirmed critical aspects of identity; privilege; and property,” making it easy to exclude African Americans (Harris, 1993, p. 1725), and Intersectionality, which explores the intersection of race, class, gender, and systems of oppression (Collins & Andersen, 2007; Crenshaw, 1989). This posits that engineering is considered White Property based on access, and how gendered racial identity limits access to informal engineering education for Black girls.

Methods

A mini-ethnographic case study was used to understand the culture of Black girls in a camp with eight culturally responsive engineering challenges as guided by teachers and undergraduates (Fusch & Ness, 2017). Two primary sources were used: daily dairies and semi-structured interviews. Daily Diaries were conducted as the girls answered 3 questions on voice recorders daily after camp. Semi-structured interviews took place after camp. Interviews were approximately 30 minutes to an hour.

Findings

Through cultural connections in the hands-on engineering challenges, the program made the girls aware of how engineering addresses community needs. This built their engineering identity and STEM self-efficacy. Despite feelings of White boys privileging their own perspectives over Black girls’ knowledge, the girls worked harder to prove them wrong. Elise, who was silenced during camp, saw inequitable practices in engineering and realized how Black girls could disrupt this through representation. The water filter challenge reminded her of Flint. “It’s real life happening. Getting cleaner water, and for us to be able to pay for these things, if they can take so much money…how come they can't use that money for good. We live in less fortunate places. Black women can help their community”. Caroline shared that the heartache challenge related to her epilepsy journey. “There are a lot of White people in those areas, like brain science, that’s not for my community.” The girls’ heightened awareness is reflective of Whiteness being valued more than Blackness.

Significance

By elevating the girls' voices, this research can challenge oppressive structures that limit engineering identity development. It investigates the ways in which the girls used their resilience to elevate themselves in the environment. This extends our understanding by discussing the programmatic curriculum that can lead to persistence of Black girls based on their identities, perceptions, and connections to their communities.

Author

• Whitney N. McCoy, Duke University
  Presenting Author