Rhetorical Engineering Education to Support Proactive Equity Teaching and Outcomes (RESPETO)

This project will provide a handbook of materials for faculty in engineering to help them understand language practices (what language is and how it is used) in engineering education at a Hispanic Serving Institution. The handbook will offer recommended teaching practices that help students become more aware of how language is inaccessible to Latinx students. In addition, the handbook will be available to faculty in a digital format. This ethnographic project uses raciolinguistics as its theoretical framework. It will (a) investigate how and in what ways a racialized discourse in engineering creates barriers for minoritized populations to pursue engineering degrees; (b) provide engineering faculty and students with tools to recognize, value, and activate language that challenges dominant racialized discourses in engineering through critical sociolinguistic awareness; (c) and identify and reflect on pedagogical practices that challenge racialized discourse and linguistic practices throughout their work. This project will provide a more nuanced understanding of the role language and linguistic practices play in perpetuating inequity and lack of access to engineering spaces. The project will engage four cohorts of 10 Latinx undergraduate students as researchers who will co-design, collect, analyze, and disseminate data for the project. The project will include document analysis of institutional artifacts, interviews with faculty, staff, and administrators, awareness workshops and seminars, questionnaires, and reflective journals. Findings will be disseminated through a digital handbook, social media campaign, seminars, workshops, and conference presentations. The findings from this project will appeal to the broader engineering education field, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Predominantly White Institutions, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This project is funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education activity (EDU Racial Equity). The activity supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. This activity aligns with NSF's core value of supporting outstanding researchers and innovative thinkers from across the Nation's diversity of demographic groups, regions, and types of organizations. Programs across EDU contribute funds to the Racial Equity activity in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.