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Session:
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PER: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
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Paper Type:
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Contributed
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Title:
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How Engineering Majors Reproduce and Challenge Meritocratic Ideologies*
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Meeting:
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2019 Summer Meeting: Provo, UT |
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Location:
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N/A |
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Date:
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Time:
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5:45PM
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Author:
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Hannah C. Sabo, University of Maryland
9493948423, hsabo13@gmail.com
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Co-Author(s):
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Jennifer Radoff, Chandra Turpen, Ayush Gupta, Andrew Elby
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Abstract:
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Meritocracy, a problematic worldview, conveys that "worth" accrues with an individual based solely on their own accomplishment. In physics culture, meritocracy is often paired with a technocratic ideology, which draws a line between technical and “soft” (e.g., social) skills and assigns more worth to the technical. Cultures of meritocracy and technocracy negatively affect equity and inclusion in STEM. Yet, students are steeped in these values during college, and PER interventions are rarely designed to disrupt the culture of meritocracy/technocracy. To inform such designed disruptions, we examine how STEM majors’ views align and don’t align with meritocratic/technocratic ideologies. Specifically, we present an example of undergraduate engineering students discussing the validity of adages such as "Some people are just superior to other people." Using tools of discourse analysis, we document how meritocratic and technocratic stances are reproduced or challenged in their talk.
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Footnotes:
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*Work supported by NSF Grant 1733649.
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