Explicating Engineering Cultural Capital for All Students’ Success

• In Event: Transforming STEM Departments: Institutional Change for Equity and Inclusion

Abstract

Current engineering reforms embrace diversity rhetoric for higher education. Despite tacit agreement for long-term goals for expanding diversity, institutions may also leave intact colonizing processes, policies, and practices which reinforce the long standing White, male privilege. In this paper we investigate one university’s attempt to address the disproportionate attrition of Latina/o/x from their undergraduate engineering program. Efforts to explicate the cultural capital of successful engineering students resulted in increased student success. Analysis also revealed specific instances of gender and racial bias and instigated a renewed call for addressing inequities among engineering and education faculty. Implications for future research and recruitment efforts are discussed.

Author

• Randy Yerrick, California State University - Fresno