Community Cultural Wealth from an Engineering and Science Education Department

Abstract Asset-based frameworks are used to describe the strengths that individuals bring to new situations, including graduate students joining a department. Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) was created with Communities of Color in mind to highlight the multitude of assets students of color possess. CCW uses familial, linguistic, aspirational, resistant, navigational, and social capital to describe students' strengths in and out of the classroom. These capitals appear in multiple settings and from many different sources. They also can be depicted simultaneously as a single capital cannot describe some strengths. The Engineering and Science Education (ESED) department at Clemson University created a space named "Lunch and Learn" ("L&L"), where students mutually support and grow their educational assets alongside their peers and mentors. We use a descriptive case study to investigate the experiences of graduate students within Lunch and Learn. The research team conducted semi-structured interviews to investigate graduate students' experiences in L&L. Finally, we use open and axial coding to analyze and describe the themes demonstrating community cultural wealth capitals. Results demonstrate that graduate students' aspirational, linguistic, navigational, and social capital are augmented by Lunch and Learn. Students interact with peers at various program levels, allowing younger students to glean additional knowledge, skills, and interests from older students. This interaction assists novice graduate students in persisting in their studies by reinforcing their aspirational capital. Advice and knowledge from experienced students in the program also add to novice students' navigational capital as experienced students provide perspectives about different educational pathways and career options during the program. Explicit and implicit messaging helps students feel connected and supported by other graduate students in the department, allowing a continued enactment of their social capital.