You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research
Background: Those who participate in engineering are often assumed to be smart by others. At the same time, the cultural construction of what counts as “smart” is biased and therefore functions as a barrier to broadening participation in engineering. While considerable work has been done to understa...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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VT Publishing
2023-08-01
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| Series: | Studies in Engineering Education |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://account.seejournal.org/index.php/vt-j-see/article/view/86 |
| _version_ | 1827805825820786688 |
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| author | Bailey Braaten Emily Dringenberg Amy Kramer Rachel Kajfez |
| author_facet | Bailey Braaten Emily Dringenberg Amy Kramer Rachel Kajfez |
| author_sort | Bailey Braaten |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background: Those who participate in engineering are often assumed to be smart by others. At the same time, the cultural construction of what counts as “smart” is biased and therefore functions as a barrier to broadening participation in engineering. While considerable work has been done to understand engineering identity, how students understand themselves as smart is rarely made explicit in engineering identity research. Purpose: This paper is a theoretical discussion which highlights the need for engineering identity research to integrate students’ understanding of themselves as smart. By not incorporating students’ understanding of themselves as smart explicitly in work on engineering identity, we allow the bias in what gets recognized as smart to remain implicit and oppressive. Scope: In this paper, we argue that the idea of smart is very salient in engineering contexts and contributes to inequity. Then, we demonstrate how three different framings of identity allow for the explicit integration of how students are understanding themselves as smart. We also present selected examples from our empirical data to illustrate the concrete ways in which students’ understandings of themselves as smart manifest in an engineering context. Conclusions: We provided explicit opportunities for researchers to integrate students’ understandings of themselves as smart across three different framings of identity and how such understanding has shown up in our empirical research. In doing so, we conclude that making “smart” explicit in engineering identity provides a way to understand the exclusionary nature of engineering, and a new lens to apply when considering efforts to broaden participation in engineering. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T21:31:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-47976a80984c48c59305c12ab1c213e5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2690-5450 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T21:31:43Z |
| publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
| publisher | VT Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Studies in Engineering Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-47976a80984c48c59305c12ab1c213e52023-09-27T08:19:14ZengVT PublishingStudies in Engineering Education2690-54502023-08-014222–3722–3710.21061/see.869You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity ResearchBailey Braaten0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6058-3226Emily Dringenberg1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7635-7047Amy Kramer2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6206-2571Rachel Kajfez3https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9745-1921The Ohio State UniversityThe Ohio State UniversityThe Ohio State UniversityThe Ohio State UniversityBackground: Those who participate in engineering are often assumed to be smart by others. At the same time, the cultural construction of what counts as “smart” is biased and therefore functions as a barrier to broadening participation in engineering. While considerable work has been done to understand engineering identity, how students understand themselves as smart is rarely made explicit in engineering identity research. Purpose: This paper is a theoretical discussion which highlights the need for engineering identity research to integrate students’ understanding of themselves as smart. By not incorporating students’ understanding of themselves as smart explicitly in work on engineering identity, we allow the bias in what gets recognized as smart to remain implicit and oppressive. Scope: In this paper, we argue that the idea of smart is very salient in engineering contexts and contributes to inequity. Then, we demonstrate how three different framings of identity allow for the explicit integration of how students are understanding themselves as smart. We also present selected examples from our empirical data to illustrate the concrete ways in which students’ understandings of themselves as smart manifest in an engineering context. Conclusions: We provided explicit opportunities for researchers to integrate students’ understandings of themselves as smart across three different framings of identity and how such understanding has shown up in our empirical research. In doing so, we conclude that making “smart” explicit in engineering identity provides a way to understand the exclusionary nature of engineering, and a new lens to apply when considering efforts to broaden participation in engineering.https://account.seejournal.org/index.php/vt-j-see/article/view/86identity theoryengineering identitysmartundergraduatebroadening participation |
| spellingShingle | Bailey Braaten Emily Dringenberg Amy Kramer Rachel Kajfez You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research Studies in Engineering Education identity theory engineering identity smart undergraduate broadening participation |
| title | You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research |
| title_full | You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research |
| title_fullStr | You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research |
| title_full_unstemmed | You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research |
| title_short | You’re an Engineer? You Must Be Really Smart! A Theoretical Discussion of the Need to Integrate “Smart” into Engineering Identity Research |
| title_sort | you re an engineer you must be really smart a theoretical discussion of the need to integrate smart into engineering identity research |
| topic | identity theory engineering identity smart undergraduate broadening participation |
| url | https://account.seejournal.org/index.php/vt-j-see/article/view/86 |
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