UC Irvine

Latine and non-Latine youth in the United States are less likely to study engineering than Latine youth in Mexico and other Latin American countries, confirming systemic problems with the pedagogical practices in the United States that deter youth from initiating and completing degrees in engineering. Researchers, policy-makers, and educators need alternative methods to create inclusive, effective programs and curricula for minoritized populations to pursue engineering. This dissertation explores how the ingenuity in everyday practices, embodied in “make do” artifacts constructed with unconventional resources can be leveraged in asset-based pedagogies such as Connected Learning to support a reimagining of engineering education. This dissertation aims to design an asset-based engineering pedagogy by leveraging the cultural wealth of “everyday ingenuity” to ultimately lead to greater diversity and inclusion of Latine youth, particularly Mexican-American, in the engineering classrooms and workplaces of the United States. I expand on the asset-based work of Connected Learning to design pedagogies and programs that allow communities to surface their culturally specific ways of interacting and creating. The research questions are: (1) How does "everyday ingenuity" manifest in the lives of Mexican American Youth? (2) How do Connected Learning Spaces support and empower the development of engineering interest through connection and network building? (3) How do we design a Connected Learning, engineering-focused workshop that leverages everyday ingenuity with Participatory Design to promote Mexican American youth participation? Study participants include Mexican American middle and high school age youth in Southern California, USA. This qualitative study follows the methodology of Social Design-Based Experiments and multiple case studies as the specific research method. Findings from artifacts and interviews with youth and their families show evidence of ingenuity mainly resulting from projects to repair objects, provide solutions in the home, and inspired by hobbies and interest-driven goals. The co-designed prototype for a workshop following Participatory Design principles, showed how everyday ingenuity projects can be leveraged with Latine cultural influences to continue (re)imagining the future of the engineering landscape with and for Latine youth.