ENGINEERING AS A CAREER CHOICE AMONG RURAL APPALACHIAN STUDENTS

摘要

Discussions of diversity in engineering often focus on race and gender, but rarely address class or cultural issues. Students in Appalachia and other rural cultures also represent a lost opportunity; they are no less capable and no less valuable to engineering than other underrepresented groups. At the same time engineering has the potential to provide a powerful career path in areas of the country that suffer disproportionate economic losses from shifts in the global economy. Yet little work to date has been done on recruitment of engineering students from these marginalized rural cultures. To address this gap, this paper presents a review of literature on career choice in Appalachian students, identifying potential barriers to engineering and suggesting possible interventions that may help overcome these barriers. Audiences for this work include agencies interested in implementing intervention programs to provide rural Appalachian students with the necessary tools to perceive engineering as a possible career choice. These include, but are not limited to, universities, public school systems, and other educational institutions invested in the growth of the Appalachian region. The literature review includes studies of the culture of the Appalachian region, career choice within the region, and characteristics of Appalachian youth. To address the potential gaps and barriers identified through previous studies, the paper concludes by drawing on the concept of future possible selves. This framework has been used to study populations of youth facing similar barriers, including barriers raised by cultural biases and socio-economic class. The possible selves framework thus provides one potentially useful lens to better understand what Appalachian students would like to become, what they are afraid of becoming, and what outreach steps can be taken to engage this population in careers in engineering in the future.