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The importance of female crash test dummies: Bringing equity discussions into engineering classrooms through questioning inequitable product design

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Faculty Development Division Technical Session 3

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41346

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41346

Download Count

520

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Paper Authors

biography

Natascha Buswell University of California, Irvine

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Natascha Trellinger Buswell is an assistant professor of teaching in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her B.S. in aerospace engineering at Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in engineering education in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She is particularly interested in inclusive teaching conceptions and methods and graduate level engineering education.

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biography

Joseph Henry University of California, Irvine

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Ph.D. Student in Sociology at the University of California Irvine, studying educational pathways in STEM, and equity, diversity, and inclusion interventions in engineering classrooms.

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Kevin Flaieh

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Abstract

This article presents preliminary findings based on an intervention that we applied in an upper-division engineering course. The intervention is designed to get students to question the role of engineers as designers of society through critical analysis of engineering designs that do not adequately consider the diversity of their user base. Preliminary findings reported here center on a thematic analysis of the students' responses to the assignment, highlighting major trends in the data showing that students are attentive to designs that negatively impact women and people of color. We discuss implications for further development of the intervention based on evidence from others in the field and the efficacy of our intervention in demonstrating to students that engineering as a discipline is attentive to issues of inequity.

Buswell, N., & Henry, J., & Flaieh, K. (2022, August), The importance of female crash test dummies: Bringing equity discussions into engineering classrooms through questioning inequitable product design Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41346

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