Secules, S., & Gupta, A., & Elby, A. (2015, June), Theorizing Can Contribute to Marginalized Students' Agency in Engineering Persistence  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24918

\bibitem{asee_peer_24918}
  Secules, S., \& Gupta, A., \& Elby, A. (2015, June), \emph{Theorizing Can Contribute to Marginalized Students' Agency in Engineering Persistence}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.24918

Stephen Secules, Ayush Gupta, and Andrew Elby.  "Theorizing Can Contribute to Marginalized Students' Agency in Engineering Persistence".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/24918 Internet.  16 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_24918}
  Stephen Secules, Ayush Gupta, and Andrew Elby.
  "Theorizing Can Contribute to Marginalized Students' Agency in Engineering Persistence".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/24918 Internet.  16 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_24918
author = "Stephen Secules, Ayush Gupta, and Andrew Elby"
title = "Theorizing Can Contribute to Marginalized Students' Agency in Engineering Persistence"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/24918}
number = {10.18260/p.24918}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -          Critical theorizing can contribute to marginalized students' agency in                                engineering persistence.Within qualitative research on the persistence of underrepresented students in undergraduateengineering majors, the concept of student agency has typically focused on either physicalactions that reshape their academic and social experience (e.g. seeking out academic support,pursuing a summer internship), or internal psychological mechanisms for support (Seymour &Hewitt, 1997; Stevens, O’Connor, Garrison, Jocuns, & Amos, 2008). In critical theory, bycontrast, agency in oppression goes further to include naming the oppression and occupying thetheorizing space (Yosso, 2005). Generally the oppressing majoritarian forces occupy thetheorizing space, and shape the narrative which forms the basis of interpreting “objective” truth.Here the acts of theorizing, including criticizing and deconstructing the dominant narrative, aresubversive and agentic in themselves.This paper investigates the role of critical theorizing on marginalized students' persistence inengineering, through an analysis of agency in the narrative interviews of a woman, Rachel, in thefirst year of an undergraduate engineering major.The data comes from video and transcription of 3 in depth one-on-one interviews. Whenanalyzing the narrative data, we used narrative and thematic analysis (Connelly & Clandinin,2003) to track the development of several of Rachel’s smaller sub-narratives over time. Weexamined any shifts in the degree and form of agency in the retellings of these stories andthemes, to look for evidence of critical theorizing. Several sub-narratives have been exploredincluding “Where do I fit in engineering,” “I suck at math,” and women in engineering. Theresults from the “Where do I fit in engineering” sub-narrative are briefly outlined below.In the first video, as a student in her first semester of the engineering major, we see Rachel asengaged in a process of defining engineering and herself as an engineer. In the first semesterinterview, the dominant narrative Rachel receives about engineering is that it is monolithic,heavily technical, and uncreative; whereas she extrapolates her own identity as a nontechnicalleader, creative, and communicative. This leads her to doubt her future in engineering. In theSpring term Rachel takes an English class which involves tutoring high school students andreflecting on education. There she encounters several pedagogical theories which she connects tomany of the prior term’s complaints. She reflects on the concept of plurality in education inorder to criticize the engineering department’s monolithic stance. This strengthens her ownengineering identity, and reframes her persistence in the engineering department as making hermore well-rounded, whereas she characterizes the purely technical engineers as not developingher strengths of communication and creativity to the same extent.Thus we see a shift in Rachel’s narrative on the subject of “Where do I fit in engineering?” fromthe first interview to the second. In the first interview, Rachel is resistant and frustrated with theway engineering is being presented, but her critiques focus more on specific class practices andher struggles cause her to question her engineering trajectory and position. In the secondinterview she moves to a much more actively critical position, where she connects many of theprior complaints to newfound pedagogical theories, cultural analysis, and impressions of realworld value. Her narrative construction is a good example of liberatory theory (hooks, 1992) atwork empowering marginalized groups in the process of making meaning of theiroppression. What results is agency on several levels, including the power to question one’ssurroundings and to form a coherent, theoretically-grounded critique of the system, and theenhanced freedom and ability to take agentic actions.While agency is commonly discussed as a personal drive or an element of navigationalstrategies, our work suggests that the act of critical theorizing within narratives of engineeringpersistence is an important aspect of student agency which deserves our further attention.                                            References:Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (2003). Narrative Inquiry. In J. L. Green, J. L. Green, G.    Camilli, P. B. Elmore, & P. B. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of Complementary Methods in    Education Research (pp. 477–487). Mahwah, N.J: Routledge.hooks, bell. (1992). Theory as Liberatory Practice. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 34(1990),    1–12.Seymour, E., & Hewitt, N. M. (1997). Talking About Leaving: Why undergraduates leave the    sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Stevens, R., O’Connor, K., Garrison, L., Jocuns, A., & Amos, D. M. (2008). Becoming an     Engineer: Toward a Three Dimensional View of Engineering Learning. Journal of     Engineering Education, (July), 355–368.Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community    cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91.    doi:10.1080/1361332052000341006
AU  - Stephen Secules
AU  - Ayush Gupta
AU  - Andrew Elby
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Theorizing Can Contribute to Marginalized Students' Agency in Engineering Persistence
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/24918
DO  - 10.18260/p.24918
ER  -