Making Sense of Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering

The normative culture of engineering has been described as privileging certain forms of knowledge, being hyperfocused on technical content, cultivating a chilly climate for individuals with excluded identities, embracing deficit model thinking, and promoting competition over collaboration. These factors perpetuate an engineering "ideal" that has excluded diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, abilities, backgrounds, and worldviews. In response, engineering units across the United States have focused on broadening participation and making the engineering culture more inclusive. However, little is known about how diversity and inclusion (D&I) is conceptualized by those that lead such reform efforts. This phenomenological study examined how three teams funded by National Science Foundation conceptualize D&I. Interviews with eleven participants were analyzed through a critical sensemaking framework, which considers institutional context and norms along with individuals' personal experiences. Understanding these conceptualizations is critical, as it provides insight into how and why teams might approach engineering D&I work. As findings show, normative conceptualizations of D&I are sometimes perpetuated even by teams tasked with transformative change, suggesting that there is much work to be done.