An Exploratory Analysis of Cultural Capital Among Black Engineering Students at Minority Serving Institutions

Jerrod A Henderson; Cheery Chukwukelu; David Horton

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Conference: 2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Publication Date: February 9, 2025
Start Date: February 9, 2025
End Date: February 11, 2025
Conference Session: Track 6: Technical Session 6: An Exploratory Analysis of Cultural Capital Among Black Engineering Students at Minority Serving Institutions
Tagged Topics: Diversity and 2025 CoNECD Paper Submissions
Page Count: 41
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/54071
Download Count: 6

Paper Authors

biography

Jerrod A Henderson University of Houston - COE orcid.org/0000-0002-0501-5805

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Dr. Jerrod A. Henderson (“Dr. J”) is an Assistant Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston (UH).

He began his higher education pursuits at Morehouse College and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University where he earned degrees in both Chemistry and Chemical Engineering as a part of the Atlanta University Center’s Dual Degree in Engineering Program. While in college he was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar which afforded him the opportunity to intern at NASA Langley. He also earned distinction as a Phi Beta Kappa member and an American Chemical Society Scholar. Dr. Henderson completed his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his time as a graduate student, he was a NASA Harriet G. Jenkins Graduate Fellow.

Dr. Henderson has dedicated his career to increasing the number of students who are on pathways to pursue STEM careers. He believes that exposing students to STEM early will have a lasting impact on their lives and academic pursuits. He is the co-founder of the St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy (SEBA). SEBA is an educational intervention aimed at exposing underrepresented fourth and fifth-grade students and their families to hands-on STEM experiences.

Henderson's research interests are in engineering identity development among Black men and engineering student success. He was most recently recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine as an Inspiring STEM Leader, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) Outstanding Young Alumni Award, and Career Communications Group with a Black Engineer of the Year Award for college-level promotion of engineering education.

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Cheery Chukwukelu University of Houston orcid.org/0009-0004-2120-929X

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David Horton Jr. University of Houston

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Abstract

Despite ongoing efforts to increase the representation of Black students in engineering, participation among Black students remains low. While past research on Black students in engineering has highlighted the challenges they experience in higher educational institutions, a growing amount seeks to use assets-based perspectives to highlight their experiences. Also, despite Minority serving institutions (MSIs) producing significant portions of Black engineers, there remains a dearth of literature that has explored Black engineering students’ experiences at MSIs. We draw and build upon the work of researchers who highlight how engineering students possess cultural wealth that allows them to succeed in engineering.

Using community cultural wealth (CCW), we explored how five Black engineering undergraduate students at Historically Black Colleges & Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions cultivated and used their cultural capital. We used a qualitative approach that included semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analyzed using an iterative process of inductive and deductive coding. The six forms of cultural capital (linguistic, resistant, familial, social, aspirational, and navigational) served as a priori codes for deductive analysis.

We developed two themes that describe how students built, supported, and used their cultural capital, which included Relationships as the Bedrock for Success and Intersections of Cultural Capital in Overcoming Challenges. Our research findings revealed that familial and social relationships are crucial for early STEM engagement, emotional support, building aspirations, and developing needed skills for navigating engineering. Black engineering students were also sources of cultural capital for their peers, reinforcing their cultural wealth. To overcome challenges, Black engineering students used intersections of their cultural capital. These students employed combinations, layers, and multi-directional aspects of their cultural capital to persist and become successful in engineering. This study emphasizes the necessity for research acknowledging differences in Black students’ experiences at HSIs and HBCUs and the importance of diversifying faculty and their approaches to engaging with students. We contribute to the body of research that uses antideficit approaches to examine the experiences of Black engineering students at MSIs.

Citation
Format

Henderson, J. A., & Chukwukelu, C., & Horton, D. (2025, February), An Exploratory Analysis of Cultural Capital Among Black Engineering Students at Minority Serving Institutions Paper presented at 2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD), San Antonio, Texas. https://peer.asee.org/54071

TY - CPAPER
AB - Despite ongoing efforts to increase the representation of Black students in engineering, participation among Black students remains low. While past research on Black students in engineering has highlighted the challenges they experience in higher educational institutions, a growing amount seeks to use assets-based perspectives to highlight their experiences. Also, despite Minority serving institutions (MSIs) producing significant portions of Black engineers, there remains a dearth of literature that has explored Black engineering students’ experiences at MSIs. We draw and build upon the work of researchers who highlight how engineering students possess cultural wealth that allows them to succeed in engineering.

Using community cultural wealth (CCW), we explored how five Black engineering undergraduate students at Historically Black Colleges &amp;amp; Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions cultivated and used their cultural capital. We used a qualitative approach that included semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analyzed using an iterative process of inductive and deductive coding. The six forms of cultural capital (linguistic, resistant, familial, social, aspirational, and navigational) served as a priori codes for deductive analysis.

We developed two themes that describe how students built, supported, and used their cultural capital, which included Relationships as the Bedrock for Success and Intersections of Cultural Capital in Overcoming Challenges. Our research findings revealed that familial and social relationships are crucial for early STEM engagement, emotional support, building aspirations, and developing needed skills for navigating engineering. Black engineering students were also sources of cultural capital for their peers, reinforcing their cultural wealth. To overcome challenges, Black engineering students used intersections of their cultural capital. These students employed combinations, layers, and multi-directional aspects of their cultural capital to persist and become successful in engineering. This study emphasizes the necessity for research acknowledging differences in Black students’ experiences at HSIs and HBCUs and the importance of diversifying faculty and their approaches to engaging with students. We contribute to the body of research that uses antideficit approaches to examine the experiences of Black engineering students at MSIs.
AU - Jerrod A Henderson
AU - Cheery Chukwukelu
AU - David Horton Jr.
CY - San Antonio, Texas
DA - 2025/02/09
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - An Exploratory Analysis of Cultural Capital Among Black Engineering Students at Minority Serving Institutions
UR - https://peer.asee.org/54071
ER -