Latina/o Adolescents' Funds of Knowledge Related to Engineering

Abstract

Background According to a growing body of research, many Latinas/os experience dissonance between their everyday cultural practices and the cultural practices prevalent in engineering. This dissonance contributes to many Latinas/os' sense that engineering is "not for me."Purpose This study sought to explore the meaning in the relationship between engineering cultural practices and the funds of knowledge found in Latina/o adolescents' familial, community, and recreational settings.Design/Method This ethnographic study followed seven groups of Latina/o adolescents as they identified problems in their communities and solved them through engineering design processes. Using a modified form of constant comparative analysis, we analyzed three data sources: individual interviews, observations of group meetings, and concurrent or retrospective protocols. We developed a coding scheme that categorized the participants' funds of knowledge as they related to engineering. ResultsThe participants' everyday skills and bodies of knowledge aligned with engineering practices. Specifically, their familial, community, and recreational funds of knowledge mapped onto the application of engineering design processes, systems thinking, ethical and empathetic reasoning, knowledge of production and processing, use of communication and construction tools, scientific and mathematical knowledge, and teamwork.Conclusions Engineering instruction for Latina/o adolescents can be reconceptualized as a third space of learning and knowing where adolescents' everyday familial, community, and recreational practices are actively solicited and connected with the cultural practices of engineering.

Reading and Engineering: Elementary Students’ Co-Application of Comprehension Strategies and Engineering Design Processes

“…By drawing heavily from a priori codes in existing research literature, we also limited the study in the sense that we did not account for how elementary students may approach engineering design or comprehension in idiosyncratic ways. Wilson-Lopez et al (2016) have critiqued existing descriptions of engineering design processes, arguing that students from non-mainstream cultures often approach engineering design in non-canonical yet effective ways. Our reliance on these pre-existing codes did not enable us to capture perhaps ''unconventional'' lines of reasoning that the students employed toward both comprehension and design (cf.…”

“…For instance, if a student asked a question in her Engineer's Notebook or in the margins of a text, and then she verbally shared that same question with her group, we believed that question should only be counted and coded once rather than twice. Thus, our research followed previous methodologies (e.g., Wilson-Lopez, Mejia, Hasbún, & Kasun, 2016) in which researchers used written and visual work to prompt verbal comments, but the written work itself was not formally analyzed. …”

“…Although some qualitative researchers and methodologists (Boyatzis, 1998;DeCuir-Gunby, Marshall, & McCulloch, 2011;Krippendorff, 2009) establish credibility through intercoder agreement, other qualitative researchers and methodologists (e.g., Harry, Sturges, & Klinger, 2005;Kvale & Brinkman, 2009;Sandelowski & Barroso, 2007;Smagorinsky, 2008) establish credibility through mutual discussion until researchers reach consensus on the codes that should be assigned to each data point. Many qualitative methodologists (Freeman, deMarrais, Preissle, Roulston, & St. Pierre, 2007;Saldaña, 2012) have asserted that both methods of establishing credibility are valid, and both have been used in previous qualitative studies related to literacy or engineering (e.g., Roth, 1997; Smagorinsky & O'Donell-Allen, 1998;Smagorinsky, Wilson, & Moore, 2011;Wilson-Lopez et al, 2016). Because this study was conducted under the umbrella of collaborative inquiry, in which each researcher's viewpoint was rigorously incorporated at each stage of the process, we opted to establish reliability through the latter method of mutual discussion and consensus.…”

Native Spanish-Speaking Adolescents' Information Gathering Processes While Solving Problems through Engineering

“…21 The participants' backgrounds served as assets to engineering in many ways, which we elaborate on in other publications in greater detail. 13 In the context of this study, one clear benefit of speaking Spanish was that participants could communicate with Spanishspeaking clients and create designs that were more responsive to their needs. By implication, engineering teachers might actively encourage and elicit their students' use of home languages throughout the design process, especially through encouraging their students to communicate to a range of diverse clients and stakeholders.…”

“…13 Table 1 outlines the different problems that each group sought to address through engineering. We provided each adolescent with a tablet throughout the duration of the project so they could use it to search for information online.…”