Black Male Engineering Pathways

The underrepresentation of Black men in engineering is well-known and documented. Black Males account for only 3.9% of male engineering undergraduates compared to their White and Asian American counterparts, at 53.1% and 13.2%, respectively. (American Society of Engineering Education, 2021). The lack of representation of Black men in engineering is linked to isolation, marginalization, having a lower sense of belonging, and a disconnect from traditional STEM pedagogical practices and environments which are often positioned as objective, colorblind, and apolitical (Malone & Barabino, 2009; McGee, 2020; McGee & Martin, 2011; Baber, 2015; Henderson et al., 2021). Meanwhile, Black men constitute a missing segment of the population who could contribute to the global engineering knowledge economy (Burt et al., 2019). Black students who take “non-traditional” pathways to become engineering students might be a potential source for the future engineering workforce. For those reasons, in this study, we sought to understand how Black male college students navigated paths into engineering as internal transfers. We closely followed the transitions of three Black male undergraduate students who intend to major in engineering. During year one, each student participated in three semi-structured interviews. Using an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach we developed 9 themes: Engineering Transitions, Community Building, Personal Motivators, Leveraging Resources, Self Confidence, Escapes, Spirituality, Negative Peer Experiences, and Early Exposure. We found that these students also have similar experiences to those of current first-year engineering majors and gained insight into how students transition into engineering mindsets.