“I'm a Straight White Guy; I Can Sort of Do Whatever I Want”: A Critical Whiteness Examination of the Experiences of White Men Engineering Students

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Considering Culture, Race, and Social Justice in and Out of the Classroom (Table 27)

Abstract

Hegemonic disciplinary cultures pose threats to students who possess minoritized identities. As the dominant majority within engineering, white men students have the ability to contribute to necessary cultural shifts, transforming disciplinary environments so that they are inclusive as opposed to one that privileges and reifies masculinity and white supremacy. However, literature on white men in engineering is limited. This study utilizes critical whiteness and hegemonic masculinity to analyze longitudinal, qualitative data from eight white men in engineering at a large PWI in the Midwest. Findings from this study demonstrate that white men experience cognitive dissonance, simultaneously acknowledging that minoritized peers experience challenges that they do not as members of the majority, while also demonstrating racial and gender evasiveness.

Authors

• Danielle Vegas Lewis, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Linda DeAngelo, University of Pittsburgh

• Gerard Dorve-Lewis, University of Pittsburgh