Centering the Marginalized Student’s Voice Through Autoethnography: Implications for Engineering Education Research

Abstract

Background: This autoethnography focuses on the voice of a woman of color in her journey becoming an engineering undergraduate. Purpose: Drawing on critical race theory, this counterstory illustrates structural challenges that some underrepresented students face when they pursue STEM degrees. At the same time, drawing on autoethnography, this article challenges engineering education researchers to reconsider how we engage with participants in our work. Design/Method: This collaboratively written autoethnography demonstrates how qualitative engineering education researchers might deploy relational ethics with marginalized participants. Results: This counterstory challenges the deficit-based theorizing prevalent in engineering education research and practice and, instead, shifts to an asset-based theorizing as well as needed systemic changes. Conclusions: We suggest that by collaborating as coresearchers and coauthors, participants gain the opportunity to reflect on lived experiences in unexpected ways and share power in how their stories are told. We also suggest that researchers using this alternative paradigm will recognize participants as holders and creators of knowledge and acknowledge participants as experts of their own experiences.

Keywords

• autoethnography
• counterstory
• deficit theorizing
• asset-based
• women of color
• critical race theory
• relational ethics
• power