Queer Engineering Students Navigating the Borderlands of Their Identities

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: QTBIPOC Experiences and Epistemologies in Higher Education (Table 3)

Abstract

Over the past two decades, there has been increased investigation of US LGBTQ+ engineering students. Researchers have documented several cultural aspects of engineering that negatively affect LGBTQ+ engineering practitioners, including social-technical dualism, a depoliticized and meritocratic culture, as well as a culture of objectivity, neutrality, and silence. However, there is a gap in investigating the intersecting identities of engineering students as they experience engineering, leaving students at the intersection of multiple minoritized identities undersupported. In this paper, I explore the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual engineering students using Anzaldua’s borderlands identity framework to understand how engineering students form bridges across some of their identities.

Author

• Héctor E Rodríguez-Simmonds, Boston College