Dilemmas in Co-curricular support: A theoretical and pragmatic discussion on current practice and future challenges
Conference
Secules, S, Lee, WC, Boyd-Sinkler, K et al. (2019). Dilemmas in Co-curricular support: A theoretical and pragmatic discussion on current practice and future challenges
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Secules, S, Lee, WC, Boyd-Sinkler, K et al. (2019). Dilemmas in Co-curricular support: A theoretical and pragmatic discussion on current practice and future challenges
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Colleges of engineering seeking to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion often do so through co-curricular support, scholarships, and supplemental instruction. To date, substantial education research has focused on documenting the structure and effectiveness of such practices, primarily from a pragmatic perspective grounded in highlighting programmatic features or documenting assessment results. Building on these efforts, our research team is working towards clarifying and critiquing the strategic aims and nuanced choices involved with crafting such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to identify key dilemmas associated with enhancing the accessibility of institutional support practice. To address this purpose, we used collaborative inquiry methodology to reflect on various issues related to program participation, structure, advertisements, messages, recruitment, etc. The results of our study highlight subtle ways that well-intentioned educators and student-support practitioners can further marginalize students from underrepresented populations in the engineering and computing professions by not fully considering dimensions of inclusion, including gender identity and expression, race and ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+, first-generation status, and socio-economic status.
