2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity
Crystal City, Virginia
April 14, 2019
April 14, 2019
April 22, 2019
Track: Special Topic - Social Justice & Reform Technical Session 3
Diversity and Special Topic: Social Justice & Reform
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10.18260/1-2--31776
https://peer.asee.org/31776
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Rachel Johnson is a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at University of Minnesota. Her research interests are cardiac tissue engineering and biopreservation. She earned her BS at Oregon State University in Bzioengineering.
Michelle Bothwell is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Oregon State University. Her teaching and research bridge ethics, social justice and engineering with the aim of cultivating an inclusive and socially just engineering profession.
Dr. Montfort is an Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University
Kali Furman is a PhD student in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University. Her research interests are in social justice education and feminist pedagogies.
Many campus programs seek to enhance students’ and faculty’s capacities to engage issues of inclusivity, equity and social justice. Having the ability to measure an individual’s growth in these areas would be instructive for the individual and for measuring success of programs designed to promote this learning. While there are quantitative assessment tools that measure constructs such as “cultural competencies,” we are not aware of any that measure understanding of social power and oppression, particularly how socially constructed differences and identities like gender, race, and class intersect and combine to affect people’s lives in various settings. Our approach builds on conceptual change research where students’ understanding is investigated through semi-structured interviews. In particular, we developed a realistic and relatable vignette centered around gender dynamics that explores four broad themes of understanding: social construction of gender and masculinity, systems of power, gender roles, and cooptation and power dynamics. We divided the vignette into four sections - each highlighting one of the themes listed above – and constructed sets of probing interview questions for each. Our team recorded, transcribed, and analyzed five pilot interviews using an adaptation of the constant comparison method. The analysis resulted in five spectrums of understanding within an individual’s overall conceptualization of oppression and privilege: knowledge of systems of power, the framework of viewing privilege and oppression through an individual lens versus a systems lens, social construction of gender and masculinity versus essentialism, understanding intersectionality, and use of vocabulary pertinent to the field. Presently the research team continues to test the instrument across a broader group of individuals in order to reach data saturation and instrument validation.
Johnson, R. M., & Bothwell, M. K., & Montfort, D., & Furman, K. (2019, April), Measuring the Conceptualization of Oppression and Privilege Paper presented at 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity , Crystal City, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--31776
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