Sustainability goals of students underrepresented in engineering: an intersectional study

• Autores: Allison Godwin, Leidy Klotz, Zahra Hazari, Geoff Potvin
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 32, no. Extra 4, 2016, págs. 1742-1748
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper considers the intersectionality of students’ race, ethnicity, and gender, to learn more about how various groupspursue sustainability goals through engineering. The lack of diversity in engineering is a persistent issue which hinders thedevelopment of moresustainable engineeringsolutions. Therefore, this paper investigates sustainability-related beliefs andcareer outcome expectations among engineering students who identify with groups underrepresented in the field. Thesetopics are investigated using data from a national (United States) survey of students in introductory college courses. Thesurvey sample was stratified by institution type and the number of enrolled students. Responses came from 6,772individuals enrolled at 50 institutions. Data was analyzed, ethnicity, and gender using descriptive statistics andmultinomial logistic and linear regression. The intersectional approach to analyzing the data reveal opportunities totailor teaching and messaging for greater diversity in engineering. For example, black females are more likely than othergroups to want to address food issues in their careers while white females are no different than other groups. Results likethese suggest ways to excite various populations about engineering careers, which could help attract much-needed diversityof thought to engineering for sustainability.