Career Pathways and Aspirations of Humanitarian Engineering 鶹Ժ
Summary
Humanitarian Engineering (HE) programs aim to train engineers to improve the health, prosperity, and welfare of underserved and historically marginalized communities in America and abroad. These programs are growing throughout the nation and have the potential to recruit socially attentive students and students from underrepresented minority groups to engineering. However, there is limited research on the career paths of Humanitarian Engineering students after admission. We must build an understanding of HE career paths to connect HE programs’ rhetorical aim to HE graduates’ ability to manifest tangible, equity-oriented change in these communities.
Furthermore, Decolonize Development and Black Lives Matter movements are rapidly changing the HE sector. Inequitable power hierarchies between engineers and marginalized communities, the absence of People of Color in leadership positions, deficit assumptions about developing countries, and the mediating role of white saviorism in the choice to pursue humanitarian engineering are just a few of the sociopolitical aspects of HE that are being called to task. Humanitarian engineers are responding to these calls with urgency, and preliminary attempts to decolonize the field can be seen across organizational contexts. This research will determine how social justice movements and value systems contribute to changes in student career aspirations and expectations. Further, we will collect how HE curricular, extracurricular, and internship experiences influence HE students’ career expectations, aspirations, and value systems.
Funding:
- Mortenson Center in Global Engineering Research Grant
Research & Innovation Seed Grant Program
Mortenson Center for Engineering for Developing Communities Graduate Research Assistantship
Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant Endowment
Engineering Excellence Fund
Research Questions
What are the career aspirations, expectations, and pathways of (a) HE students and (b) HE practitioners?
(i) How do the career expectations and goals of students (mis)align with practitioner reality?How are social justice movements and value systems, such as decolonization and antiracism, contributing (if at all) to changes in these aspirations, expectations, and pathways?
How are aspects of HE curricular, extra-curricular, and internship experiences influence social justice value systems, career aspirations, expectations, and pathways?
Methods
This research project will construct person-centered ethnographies by collecting data through (a) longitudinal interviews with students over one to two years that are informed by (b) survey questionnaires and (c) interactions in a community-centered Discord page. We are partnering with eight other HE graduate programs to collect an array of HE student experiences. In addition, we are conducting interviews with HE practitioners to provide information on the current reality of HE careers and how changes in the sector to prioritize decolonization and anti-racism may be changing HE career pathways. Data collection will be advised by and coded into themes using Social Cognitive Career Theory, Social Justice Social Cognitive Career Theory, and Critical Race Theory in Education. The outcomes of this research will include improving knowledge of HE student career path and value system development, creating research-based recommendations for HE education, and expanding the critical race theory framework for humanitarian engineering.
Working Manuscripts
Career expectations: “Exploring Concerns in Equity-Focused Career Goals Among Humanitarian Engineering 鶹Ժ: Investigating the Influence of Graduate Education”
- Research Questions:
- How are graduate students questioning their Humanitarian Engineering career expectations throughout a graduate program?
- How are Humanitarian Engineering academic and experiential learning experiences prompting students to question these career goals?
Motivation for social justice and critique of social oppression in Humanitarian Engineering 鶹Ժ
Research Questions:
How can students’ career goals be described as motivated by social justice and/or critique of social oppression?
What are the barriers and supports for students' career goals to be both motivated by social justice and critiquing social oppression?
Community Cultural Wealth: Recognizing Cultural Capital in Humanitarian Engineering 鶹Ժ
Research Questions:
What sources of cultural and social capital are marginalized HE students bringing to their Humanitarian Engineering education?
How are and are not HE educational programs receptive to and amplifying this cultural and social capital?
Social Justice Self-Efficacy in Humanitarian Engineering 鶹Ժ
Research Questions:
How are HE students practicing social justice activism during HE learning experience?
What are common worldview shifts HE students go through after viewing injustice?
What supports are aiding students in personal activism?
How are students convincing others of injustice?
What supports are aiding students in interpersonal activism?
What are common ways students are mending the outcomes of injustice in individual communities?
What supports are aiding students in community activism?
How are students dismantling systems (norms, policies, or behaviors) of injustice?
What supports are aiding students in institutional activism?
Effects of Localization on HE Practitioners
Research Questions:
How do humanitarian engineers perceive aid localization?
How does aid localization contribute to changes in the Humanitarian Engineering sector and Humanitarian Engineering careers?
Articles
Stine, E., A. Javernick-Will, and T. Tanksley. “The Evolving Career Aspirations of Socially Minded Engineering and Construction 鶹Ժ.” Am. Soc. Civ. Eng. 2024 Constr. Res. Congr. Des Moines.
Stine, E., A. Javernick-Will, and T. Tanksley. 2023. “Conformist Motivation Towards Social Justice in White Humanitarian Engineering Graduate 鶹Ժ.” 2023 Eng. Proj. Organ. Conf. Berlin, Germany.
Stine, E., T. Tanksley, and A. Javernick-Will. 2022. “Passing Along Experiential and Learned Understandings of Inequality: Marginalized Communities are Shapers of Humanitarian Engineers.” 2022 ASEE Annu. Conf. Expo.
