Andrea Haverkamp

Existing research shows that a student’s experience in in higher education is shaped by one’s gender. This has been shown to be particularly true in engineering, whose gender demographics and professional culture is described as hegemonically masculine. Research on gender in engineering has typically framed gender within a rigid, essentialized cisgender binary. The NSF funded research project “Invisible Gender Experiences in Engineering Education” investigates gender dynamics for transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) students in undergraduate education through collaborative, community-engaged research methodologies. The research project has three objectives: to infuse critical feminist methodologies and gender expansive understandings into engineering education research; to record, examine, and share how undergraduate engineering students in the TGNC community find success; and to collaborate with the participants to generate recommendations toward creating inclusive and just spaces.

The study launched January 2019 through an online outreach questionnaire distributed to campus oSTEM and NOGLSTP chapters and ABET accredited undergraduate programs in the United States.  This questionnaire consisted of questions regarding their communities of support for academic success, their perceptions of a welcoming engineering program climate, and the skills they identify as their strengths. Over 150 undergraduate TGNC engineering students participated in the questionnaire. The text-box answers were coded thematically alongside the numerical scale questions. Results of the coding reveal a cultural landscape for TGNC undergraduate students which can range widely from broadly inclusive (e.g. no issues with pronouns, no need for this study) to explicitly exclusionary (e.g. remaining closeted out of fear, reporting isolation). A large number of respondents shared a common constructive suggestion for engineering programs – to educate students on pronouns and the nuances of gender. This paper will present the nuances which exist in these responses, lessons learned for future investigations, and what our community can infer about invisible dynamics within our gendered engineering culture.