Asee peer logo

Borderlands First-Generation-in-Engineering Experiences-Learning with and about Students at the Nexus of Nation, Discipline, and Higher Education

Download Paper |

Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Innovating Inclusivity: Rethinking Access and Empowerment in STEM Education

Tagged Divisions

Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48402

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Sarah Hug Colorado Evaluation and Research Consulting

visit author page

Dr. Sarah Hug is director of the Colorado Evaluation & Research Consulting. Dr. Hug earned her PhD in Educational Psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research and evaluation efforts focus on learning science, technology, engineering. She leads a social science and evaluation organization that focuses on inclusive excellence, broadening participation, and democratizing science.

visit author page

author page

Raena Cota New Mexico State University

author page

Ruth Constansa Torres Castillo New Mexico State University

author page

Enrico Pontelli New Mexico State University

author page

Adan Maximiliano Delval New Mexico State University

Download Paper |

Abstract

Educational contexts are complex in the ways they support and fail to support student success in engineering. In border communities of the southwest, where rural communities blend across national and state boundaries, student counternarratives of educational success involve complexity. In particular, engineering students’ descriptions of language, familial backgrounds, disciplinary knowledge, hidden curriculum of US post-secondary systems, and financial services built for citizens OR international students indicate there is much to be learned about how institutions in border communities support or fail to support equitable access to engineering pathways. In a larger study, transcript analysis of 40 interviews from undergraduates at a border institution indicate scholars navigate familial and background difference across educational levels (i.e., first generation status), educational systems (e.g., educational background in Mexico compared with educational background in the United States), disciplinary differences (e.g., rigors of engineering in terms of time commitment compared with other majors). In this exploratory, work in progress study, we aim to illustrate how scholars who participate in a National Science Foundation-funded scholarship program navigate learning at the nexus of nation, discipline, and higher education systems. We developed brief counternarratives, or stories that tell truths from non-dominant perspectives about how students navigate academic pathways in the computer science department. The authors identify how the counternarratives point toward needed policy and practice change in the department and hope to gain feedback from the EQUITY community regarding our efforts and next steps at Praxis, sharing these counternarratives in departmental spaces to draw out faculty, staff, and student dialog toward change.

Hug, S., & Cota, R., & Torres Castillo, R. C., & Pontelli, E., & Delval, A. M. (2024, June), Borderlands First-Generation-in-Engineering Experiences-Learning with and about Students at the Nexus of Nation, Discipline, and Higher Education Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48402

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015