A Narrative Analysis of Stories Told about Engineering in the Public Discourse: Implications for Equity and Inclusion in Engineering

Abstract

Background: Stories are a natural and powerful way for humans to make sense of complex situations. Prior research suggests that when people are faced with complex problems, like underrepresentation in engineering, they construct and defer to stories, sometimes even in the face of contradicting evidence, as a basis for decision making and action. Purpose/Hypothesis: We examined the public discourse to identify stories about underrepresentation in engineering, and about engineering more broadly, that inform and underwrite efforts to address the dual problem of a general lack of interest in engineering careers and a lack of diversity in engineering graduates and professionals. Design/Method: Drawing on the theory of framing and concepts from narrative policy analysis (NPA), we qualitatively analyzed one year of online news articles (from August 2011 to August 2012) sourced from a news briefing service for engineering educators. Results: We describe five dominant stories about engineering that define the field in terms of math and science, building things, the need for societal appreciation, diversity-driven innovation, and hardearned career rewards, respectively. These stories share a common premise-that a chronic shortage of engineers threatens the economic growth and international competitiveness of the United States. Each story includes explanations for perceived low levels of interest in the field and recommendations to address this problem. We note that increasing the participation of groups from diverse ethnic backgrounds was not a prominent theme in the discourse we analyzed compared to, for example, attracting more women or increasing the overall number of young people who are interested in engineering careers. Consistent with NPA, we also describe a nonstory that critiques the premise of the dominant stories. Conclusions: We discuss how the dominant stories reflect a particular set of values and practices, centered on competition, economic gain, and the design of technological artifacts that, in turn, shape efforts to attract, educate, and retain students. We further discuss how alternative narratives may open up new opportunities for systemic, cultural change in engineering education with important implications for diversifying the field.

Professional Engineering Socialization at the Intersection of Collective Constructions of Expectations and Individual Shame Experiences

“…Students misrepresenting their experiences in this way ultimately broadcast a narrative around embracing rigor and competition (Riley, 2017;Sochacka et al, 2021) while rendering struggle, sharing of emotions, and vulnerability unacceptable in the social context. A parallel dynamic involves students deliberately concealing experiences and tendencies that contradict their perceptions of engineering success, such as requesting help or support from engineering peers and superiors (Herring & Walther, 2016;Wirtz et al, 2018).…”

“…Notions of rigor in engineering education have been critically examined for their problematic connotations for engineering learning cultures and negative impacts on students' experience, retention, and diversity (Riley, 2017;Sochacka, Walther, Rich, & Brewer, 2021). Several studies have elucidated this problematic characterization of rigor, including related work on the role of expectations (Kamanda, Walther, Wilson, Brewer, & Sochacka, 2020), academic and nonacademic stressors (Bahmani et al, 2018;Bazeley, 2007;De Castella, Byrne, & Covington, 2013;Thompson, Davis, & Davidson, 1998), as well as a context of high selectivity in engineering programs (Davies & Guppy, 1997;Godfrey, Aubrey, & King, 2010;Slaton, 2010;Valerio, 2014).…”

“…In the engineering context, a critical discourse around problematic aspects of educational and disciplinary cultures provides a salient context for the examination of pressures or resulting shame experience for students. More specifically, work on disciplinary cultures and narratives (Committee on Public Understanding of Engineering Messages, 2008;Godfrey & Parker, 2010;Pawley, 2009;Sochacka et al, 2021) has begun to examine their impacts on student learning, retention and diversity (Foor et al, 2007). Prior work has, for example, identified masculinity (Akpanudo et al, 2018;Holth & Mellstrom, 2011;McLean et al, 1997) and competitiveness (Morton, Gee, & Woodson, 2020;Pawley, 2009;Sagebiel & Dahmen, 2006) as cultural characteristics of engineering learning environments.…”

“…Prior work has, for example, identified masculinity (Akpanudo et al, 2018;Holth & Mellstrom, 2011;McLean et al, 1997) and competitiveness (Morton, Gee, & Woodson, 2020;Pawley, 2009;Sagebiel & Dahmen, 2006) as cultural characteristics of engineering learning environments. Similarly, studies have identified a prevalent focus on technical aspects and artefacts (Mazzurco & Daniel, 2020;Sochacka et al, 2021) over social dynamics and perspectives (Cech, 2014;Garibay, 2015) to be a pervasive and in some ways problematic feature of engineering programs (Walther, Brewer, Sochacka, & Miller, 2020). These cultural characteristics of engineering programs are also associated with the persistent issues of underrepresentation in the field whereby cultural features are not equally attractive to all groups (Committee on Public Understanding of Engineering Messages, 2008;Faulkner, 2007;Pawley, 2009;Seymour & Hewitt, 1997) or have more direct exclusionary effects (Morton et al, 2020;Riegle-Crumb, King, & Irizarry, 2019).…”

“We’ve Always Been Engineers:” Indigenous Student Voices on Engineering and Leadership Identities

“…The engineering profession in the USA continues to struggle with the seemingly intractable problem of improving representation in the profession, e.g., [1,2]. During recent years, engineering education researchers focused on student retention have seen promising results through the application of identity-based approaches, e.g., [3,4].…”