Abstract
The research reported here contributes to understanding how student engineers on an engineering campus in the US mid-continent not only talked about the kinds of people recognized as engineers on campus, but also juxtaposes their talk about “campus engineer identities” with two students' ways of presenting themselves as engineers through engineering project teamwork to argue that campus engineer identities framed on-campus interpretations of actions, and ultimately that identity production was a complicated process through which campus engineer identities (cultural knowledge learned on campus) provided a lens of meaning through which to “recognize” (or not) performances of engineer selves as engineers. This research adds to conversations about identity in practice, especially identity production in science education, by suggesting the importance of cultural forms for belonging, especially at an obdurate site of science practice like the campus studied.
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Karen L. Tonso is an assistant professor of social foundations, with affiliations in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and Educational Evaluation and Research, at Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). She is a co-author of Women's Science (University of Chicago Press, 1998) and is finalizing On the Outskirts of Engineering (Sense Publications, expected late 2006). A former engineer, she worked for 15 years in the petroleum industry. Her research interests focus on the social structures of learning settings (in and out of school) in engineering education, in a ragtime festival that countered structures implicated in rampage violence like Columbine, and in a dechartering urban school. Karen's work was supported by an AERA/Spencer Fellowship and grants from the State Policy Center at WSU. Her engineering education research was recognized for its contributions both to innovation in qualitative research methods (AERA's Qualitative Methods SIG Mary Catherine Ellwein Award) and to research on women in education (AERA's Research on Women and Education SIG's Selma Greenberg Award).
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Tonso, K.L. Student Engineers and Engineer Identity: Campus Engineer Identities as Figured World. Cult.Scie.Edu. 1, 273–307 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-005-9009-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-005-9009-2