Failing to Serve: How Engineering Faculty at a Hispanic-Serving Institution Invalidate Latinas’ Sense of Belonging

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 2:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Division J - Section 1: College Student Learning and Development in College and Beyond Roundtable 2 (Table 7)

Abstract

Establishing a sense of belonging is a motivation that impacts student learning, development, and persistence. This study calls attention to the practices that are systematically contesting minoritized women’s sense of belonging even at institutions that are said to “serve” its predominately Latinx student population. Eight rounds of narrative interviews were collected spanning six years of one Latina, first-generation, and post-traditional student. Three recurring themes invalidated the participant’s sense of belonging: 1) instructors’ messages of who belonged in engineering perpetuated an unattainable view of what it meant to be an engineer, 2) reinforced a constrained ideal of an engineering student archetype, 3) unsupportive teaching practices. The experiences of this participant raise awareness of how Hispanic-Serving Institutions can still reproduce exclusionary practices.

Author

• Dina Verdin, Arizona State University