Addressing Underrepresentation of Young Women of Color in Engineering and Computing through the Lens of Sociocultural Theory

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Autor/inn/en	Eisenhart, Margaret; Allen, Carrie D.
Titel	Addressing Underrepresentation of Young Women of Color in Engineering and Computing through the Lens of Sociocultural Theory
Quelle	In: Cultural Studies of Science Education, 15 (2020) 3, S.793-824 (32 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Eisenhart, Margaret)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1871-1502
DOI	10.1007/s11422-020-09976-6
Schlagwörter	Disproportionate Representation; Females; Minority Group Students; Womens Education; Racial Bias; Gender Bias; STEM Education; Social Influences; Cultural Influences; Theories; Engineering Education; Student Experience; Middle School Students; High School Students; Barriers; Educational Environment; Environmental Influences; Sociocultural Patterns + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Weibliches Geschlecht; 'Women''s education'; Frauenbildung; Racial discrimination; Rassismus; Geschlechterstereotyp; STEM; Sozialer Einfluss; Cultural influence; Kultureinfluss; Theory; Theorie; Ingenieurausbildung; Studienerfahrung; Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; High school; High schools; Oberschule; Studentin; Lernumgebung; Pädagogische Umwelt; Schulumwelt; Environmental influence; Umwelteinfluss; Soziokulturelle Theorie
Abstract	In the past several decades, women have made considerable progress toward gender equity in the USA, but women in general and women of color in particular continue to be underrepresented in some fields of STEM, notably engineering and computing. Women of color in these fields are also underrepresented in the STEM education research literature. In this article, we review the literature on sociocultural theory and empirical research grounded in it to propose a framework for thinking about how young women of color encounter and experience engineering and computing in local educational contexts, and how their encounters and experiences might be enhanced and lead to more sustained interests and identities in these fields. The framework motivates an examination of the interrelationships among institutional practices, normative discourses, identities, interactional dynamics, and experience-near external exclusions in the contexts of the young women's lives. As such, our concerns are less with provision of the "content" per se of engineering or computing and more with the structure, organization, and discourses of the educational contexts in which the groundwork is laid for the development of interests and identities related to these fields. We briefly review significant challenges faced by middle and high school girls and young women of color as they encounter in-school and out-of-school practices and interactional dynamics related to engineering and computing, respond to local and societal discourses circulating about these fields, form social and personal identities with respect to these fields, and grapple with external exclusions, e.g., undocumented legal status and unresponsive institutions, affecting pursuit of engineering and computing. We then examine ways in which scholars taking sociocultural approaches have addressed these challenges through action research. Next, we assess the promise and limitations of these efforts in overcoming the challenges. Due to the sociocultural perspective that frames our approach, the research methodology used in the work we review is primarily qualitative, and the approach to action is primarily participatory action research. We conclude the paper with a preliminary synthesis of research on the sociocultural system in which young women of color in the USA and Canada encounter and pursue engineering and computing, including its foundational components in mathematics and science education. We argue that this system repeatedly plays out in unequal opportunity structures, deficit discourses, marginalizing interactions, conflicting identity demands, and external exclusions for many young women of color. The system carries expectancies that make sustained participation in engineering and computing risky and difficult, even if these young women have interest, ability, or ambitions to pursue these fields. We propose a program of response to these barriers, based in sociocultural practice theory. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2022/1/01