Latinx Students’ Funds of Knowledge: Cultivating Engineering Identity Development and Career Certainty (Poster 4)

• In Event: Constructing Educational Possibilities for Latin* Engineering Students: Call to Action for the Institutions and Systems That Serve Them

Abstract

Objectives
The study focuses on the underlying premise that students’ funds of knowledge can be leveraged to help explain how they come to define themselves. This study examines how Latinx engineering students develop an engineering identity by focusing on how their funds of knowledge are used as resources for their construction process. Additionally, this study discusses how Latinx students’ funds of knowledge and engineering identity inform their beliefs about graduating with an engineering degree, obtaining their desired engineering job, and succeeding in their chosen career path (conceptualized as career certainty).

Theoretical Frameworks
This study brings together two perspectives: funds of knowledge and engineering role identity. Authoring an engineering identity or seeing oneself as an engineer requires that students adopt meanings and expectations that accompany the role and then act to embody and preserve these meanings and expectations. As well, students enter engineering programs rich with experiences, cultural practices, resources, and bodies of knowledge as a result of their daily activities (i.e., funds of knowledge). Thus, funds of knowledge are resources and repositories students can access to help them define themselves as engineers.

Methods
This study employs structural equation modeling to examine how students’ funds of knowledge influence their identity development and career certainty. All surveys used in this study have robust validity evidence.

Data Sources
Data were drawn from a cross-sectional survey administered to engineering students enrolled in nine four-year institutions in the United States; five institutions are classified as Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The study analyzed data from 226 Latinx engineering students.

Results
Students’ funds of knowledge support the development of an engineering role identity. Specifically, the findings presented in this study point to four funds of knowledge that inform the engineering identity development process. These funds of knowledge are a constellation of interpersonal skills (i.e., perspective taking), practices and skillsets acquired from home (i.e., tinkering knowledge from home and connecting experiences), and the strategic use of community resources (i.e., network from college friends). Lastly, empirical findings reported in this study reinforce the importance of developing an engineering role identity as it bolsters Latinx students’ certainty of being successful in their chosen career path.

Scholarly Significance
Engineering is recognized as the application of scientific knowledge, and this understanding of engineering leaves little room for the application of home knowledge to help inform scientific practices. Overlooking the value and utility of Latinx students’ funds of knowledge in their engineering learning undercuts the opportunity to support their engineering identity development and, ultimately, their career certainty. Nevertheless, active classroom practices that communicate to students the value and utility of their funds of knowledge can reinforce how they see themselves as legitimate members of the engineering community of practice and support their engineering career path.

Author

• Dina Verdin, Arizona State University