Feeling Marked as a Marginalized Category: A Qualitative Study of Shame in Women Engineering Students

• In Event: Asserting Institutional Commitment to Supporting Students at the Margins

Abstract

Prior research demonstrates that women engineering students often experience profound marginalization. However, we know little of how the emotional experience of these students is connected to the larger social context of their education. In this study we examined professional shame in an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with two White women engineering students and two women of color (n = 4). This paper demonstrates findings concerning how the participants connected their gender or racial identity to the experience of shame. Understanding how women students experience emotional phenomena, rather than simply recording their existence, is key for educators being able to responsibly create inclusive environments that promote well-being in the engineering education culture.

Authors

• Mackenzie Sharbine, Harding University

• James Huff, Harding University

• Nicki Sochacka

• Joachim Walther