Academic Identity Construction

Although being a minority in the field of engineering is not unique to African American women, they tend to represent one of the smallest groups of engineering degree holders. For instance, in 2014, African American women earned less than one percent of undergraduate engineering degrees compared to 50% earned by White men, 11% earned by White women, and three percent earned by African American men (Yoder, 2015). Additionally, when comparing African American women to their ethnic minority female peers, they remained at the bottom as Asian American women earned three percent and Hispanic women earned two percent of undergraduate engineering degrees in 2014 (Yoder, 2015). These low numbers of African American women obtaining undergraduate engineering degrees are troublesome as the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) reported that the United States will need to produce an additional one million science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals over the next decade (Executive Office of the President, 2012). For this increase to happen, PCAST recommended increasing the number of STEM majors by a minimum of 10%, retaining more students in STEM fields, improving teaching practices, tackling the lack of math preparation students receive
Beginning with a review of academic identity defined in terms of Marcia’s Identity Statuses and continuing with a review of the literature on identity among African American women engineering students, the present study took a qualitative approach to