LGBTQ+ in ECE: Culture and (Non)Visibility

Sherard, Max K.; Julien, Christine; Borrego, Maura

doi:10.1109/te.2021.3057542

Cited by 12 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…That said, I purposefully began my short story in the cleanroom, a space where I did find fulfilment and joy from engineering, to highlight how marginalized students (including me) may find that engineering is an "overall positive" experience (Yang, Sherard, et al, 2021a, 2021b. While academic literature often perceives LGBTQ+ engineering students as having overly marginalizing, negative experiences in engineering, this dominant narrative may obscure resistance and joy (Yang, Sherard, et al, 2021b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous work has found that LGBTQIA+ engineering students and professionals experience a cisheteronormative, chilly climate in engineering (Cech & Rothwell, 2018;Cech & Waidzunas, 2011, 2022B. Hughes, 2017;Yang, Sherard, et al, 2021a, 2021b. Cis-heteronormativity is defined as the dominant cultural assumptions that normalize heterosexuality and the male-female gender binary and stabilize traditional conceptions of sex, gender, and sexuality.…”

Section: Current Study: Multiple Dimensions Of Engineering Race and Q...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engineer, Asian, and Gay AF: Counterstory as Means for Methodological Activism and Intersectional Healing in Engineering Education

Yang

2024

Studies in Engineering Education

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Background: Recent calls for methodological activism have highlighted the need for new methodologies that empower marginalized students for social change. However, what these methodologies may look like in practice remains unclear.Purpose: This paper presents counterstory as one activist methodology that responds to the call for methodological activism. Counterstory both addresses the complexities of intersectional oppressions within multiply marginalized students' lives and provides avenues for theorizing about resistance, (re)affirmation, restoration, joy, and healing from traumas of oppression for marginalized engineering students to achieve liberation. Method:To demonstrate counterstory in action, I construct an autoethnographic counterstory in short story format based on my lived experiences as a gay, Asian-American doctoral engineering student.Results: I showcase how counterstory operates to challenge dominant discourses about spaces and identities, highlighting how unique modes of intersectional erasure, resistance, and healing can be elicited from the construction of counterstories.Conclusions: Counterstory provides engineering education researchers with a critical methodological framework to continue unpacking systems of oppression in engineering while (re)centering marginalized student voices, agency, resistance, healing, and joy in academic literature. I provide ways for researchers and practitioners to use counterstory to work alongside marginalized students to fight for social justice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Current Study: Multiple Dimensions Of Engineering Race and Q...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineer, Asian, and Gay AF: Counterstory as Means for Methodological Activism and Intersectional Healing in Engineering Education

Yang

2024

Studies in Engineering Education

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“…This creates a process known as environmental surveillance, defined by Yang et al as "the ways in which LGBTQ+ people constantly assess their environment for potential stigmas associated with being visible." Environmental surveillance "informs LGBTQ+ people whether it is safe for them to exist in a particular environment and impacts their sense of belonging [15]." Hughes and Watson argue that the introduction of politicized identities "spoils' the 'purity' of the 'objective' STEM environment by introducing politics [16]."…”

Section: Depoliticization In Engineering Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through watching peer interactions in class and engineering spaces, Johnson witnessed firsthand the culture of depoliticization in engineering spaces at this university. This culture creates an environment where identity concealment or environmental surveillance is necessary for marginalized engineering students [15]. Both of the participants noted that it seemed unimportant to other engineers to discuss identity and that making marginalized identities visible may cause issues with fitting in.…”

Section: Depoliticization Of Engineering Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Importance of Spatiality and Intersectionality: Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Undergraduate Engineering Experiences Through Critical Collaborative Ethnographic Site Visits

Johnson,

Bothwell

2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering &Amp; Computing Diversity (CoNECD) Proceedings

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Engineering as a field is dominated by toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, whiteness, and cisnormativity. There is a dearth of research about transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) student experiences in engineering, and much of the available research on TGNC STEM student lives does not account for the nuanced intersections of marginalized identities that can affect a student's performance and sense of belonging in engineering or larger STEM environments. In addition, STEM-related research into marginalized populations' experiences is often done without the use of feminist, queer, trans, and anti-racist research methodologies that consider power imbalances between the researcher and the participant and the implications of conducting research on and with underrepresented populations. This study addresses these research gaps. We used critical collaborative ethnographic site visits to center TGNC positionality and community-centered research ethics. The four-day site visits presented here involved two mechanical engineering students at a prestigious private university on the East Coast of the United States. Activities included formal semi-structured interviews as well as less formal interactions with each participant, such as attending classes, visiting important campus and community spaces, and hanging out with the participants' friend/peer groups. The visiting researcher also explored the college campus and the broader community on his own to more deeply understand the politics and context of the local environment. As predicted by significant findings from previous phases of this research, the uniqueness of each student's identity, location, political worldview, and support system significantly impacted their educational paths in engineering. The two TGNC student participants, both with multiple intersecting marginalized identities, had incredibly different experiences in the same mechanical engineering program, leading one participant to resounding success and the other to leave STEM altogether. The findings from this critical collaborative ethnographic site visit suggest that barriers to success and a sense of belonging for TGNC students in engineering must be considered through the use of intersectional critical theories.

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“…Understanding the lived experiences of invisible marginalized people in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) is paramount to well-executed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. While crafting programs for marginalized people with visible identities is simpler, marginalized people with invisible identities also seek community [1] [2] [3] [4]. One such group of invisible marginalized people in STEM are LGBTQ+ engineers, who navigate a chilly, heteronormative climate in higher education [5] [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transformational Resistance and Identity Development: A Case Study of an Asexual Woman Engineer

Chou,

Yang,

Bakka

et al.

2022 CoNECD (Collaborative Network for Engineering &Amp; Computing Diversity) Proceedings

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LGBTQ+ in ECE: Culture and (Non)Visibility

Cited by 12 publications

References 32 publications

Engineer, Asian, and Gay AF: Counterstory as Means for Methodological Activism and Intersectional Healing in Engineering Education

Engineer, Asian, and Gay AF: Counterstory as Means for Methodological Activism and Intersectional Healing in Engineering Education

On the Importance of Spatiality and Intersectionality: Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Undergraduate Engineering Experiences Through Critical Collaborative Ethnographic Site Visits

Transformational Resistance and Identity Development: A Case Study of an Asexual Woman Engineer

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