Work in Progress: Perception of the Culture of Disengagement by Minoritized Students

Engineering students are often taught to apply ethical codes when making engineering and professional decisions. However, ethical codes often concern technical matters such as only undertaking assignments in their areas of competence and professional matters such as acting as faithful agents or trustees for their clients, with little regard to sociopolitical matters such as addressing discriminations and inequalities in the field of engineering and beyond. This disregard of sociopolitical matters might contribute to a large amount of discrimination in the forms of microaggressions facing engineering students of minoritized backgrounds. Microaggressions are deniable acts of racism or sexism that reinforce pathological stereotypes and inequitable social norms. A study found that different groups of racially minoritized students experience university campuses differently in some ways. Therefore, we want to investigate how minoritized engineering students understand microaggressions and how their experience with microaggressions contributes to their experience in engineering programs.