How stereotypes and relationships influence women and underrepresented minority students' fit in engineering

Abstract

Women and underrepresented minority (URM) undergraduates declare and complete science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors at different rates in comparison to majority groups. Explanations of these differences have long been deficit oriented, focusing on aptitude or similar characteristics, but more recent work focuses on institutional contexts, such as academic climate and feelings of belonging (fit). This study examines the experiences of women and URM students in engineering undergraduate programs, focusing on how they fit, experiential factors affecting fit, and how fit is mitigated by social relationships from their networks and organizations in which they participate (i.e., social capital). Thematic analysis of 55 women and URM interviewee responses shows that students who fit well were those with majority characteristics, including race (i.e., White, White‐passing) and gender (i.e., men, masculine appearance), and those in groups well represented in their programs numerically (i.e., men, Asian). In contrast, women and Black students encountered threats to their fit due to stereotyping from bias and differential treatment from others (i.e., being excluded from group work). However, students received advice from their social networks (i.e., family, professors) in which they were warned to expect discrimination, or through organizations in which they participated (i.e., National Association of Black Engineers) where their sense of community was expanded. The advice and resources provided through this network‐based and participatory social capital mitigated fit for women and Black students, albeit in different ways, helping to preserve their feelings of belonging and promote their persistence in engineering. We offer suggestions to enact university policies to increase access to social capital with homophilious alters and educational opportunities for majority groups.

The Influence of Professional Engineering Organizations on Women and Underrepresented Minority Students’ Fit

“…Studies that examine the intersection of STEM department culture, women and URM student values, and social capital from alters who can help mitigate dissonance between department culture and women and URM student values offer insight into the structural factors shaping engineering persistence. Our research shows that women and URM students benefit from access to resources and advice from alters in students' social networks (i.e., network-based social capital), as well as alters in the organizations in which they participate (i.e., participatory social capital) (Skvoretz et al, 2020;Campbell-Montalvo et al, 2021;Puccia et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2021). For example, Puccia et al (2021) identified the role network-based social capital garnered from parents' advice played in students' declaration and persistence in their engineering majors.…”

“…Parental advice included statements indicating their belief that their child could graduate with their engineering degree or encouraging them to persist even when their program became difficult. Likewise, Campbell-Montalvo et al (2021) found that students' feelings of fit in engineering, especially Black students' feelings of fit, improved as they received advice from people in their social networks, including parents, high school teachers, and other alters. In such cases, alters explicitly warned students that others in engineering would negatively prejudge them because of their gender and/or race.…”

“…More recently, scholars have found that individual variables, such as aptitude and interest, do not alone account for STEM declaration and persistence (Acker and Feuerverger, 1996;Seymour, 1999;Margolis, et al, 2000;Summers and Hrabowski, 2006;Sax, 2008;Hill, et al, 2010;Shapiro and Sax, 2011). Therefore, researchers who aim to explain STEM persistence have shifted their focus by adopting structural explanations that take into account broader social forces, such as discrimination, economic inequality, and the limited representation of women and underrepresented racial minority (URM) students in the STEM curriculum, to explain the lower proportions of women and URM engineering students and workers (McGee, 2020;Campbell-Montalvo et al, 2021). For instance, student participants in the landmark Seymour and Hewitt (1997) study cited disappointment with the culture of the field or reduced confidence as reasons for leaving STEM.…”

“…In such cases, students are referred to as the "ego" and comprise a focal point, while the influential people to whom student relationships are mapped are known as the "alters" (Burt, 1982;Lin, 1999;Son and Lin, 2012;Tulin et al, 2018). Students, including Black women in mathematics fields (Brown and Josephs, 1999;Morganson et al, 2010;Borum and Walker, 2011;Evans et al, 2011;Joseph et al, 2017;Leyva et al, 2021), who have access to homophilous alters (i.e., same-gender alters, same-race alters) receive culturally sustaining guidance when they experience obstacles and affirmation, which aids their persistence in the often unwelcoming STEM climate (Campbell-Montalvo et al, 2021). Studies that examine the intersection of STEM department culture, women and URM student values, and social capital from alters who can help mitigate dissonance between department culture and women and URM student values offer insight into the structural factors shaping engineering persistence.…”

“…Participatory social capital refers to advice from people students meet by participating in STEM professional societies, such as Professional Engineering Organizations (PEOs), including those that are gender-focused (i.e., Society of Women Engineers [SWE]) or race/ethnicity-focused (i.e., National Society of Black Engineers [NSBE] or the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers [SHPE]). Researchers have reported the value of PEOs to women and URM students, highlighting the role that participation in PEOs plays in reducing their feelings of isolation due to being numerical minorities (Espinosa, 2011;Ong et al, 2018;Campbell-Montalvo et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2021), and increasing URM students' persistence in their program (Smith et al, 2021). In our previous work, we analyzed two rounds of survey responses from ∼2,186 engineering students, in which half of the participants engaged in PEOs (Smith et al, 2021).…”