Arrebatos and institutionalized barriers encountered by low-income Latino/a/x engineering students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and emerging HSIs

Abstract

Background

Latinos/as/xs continue to face many barriers as they pursue engineering degrees, including remedial placement, lack of access to well-funded schools, and high poverty rates. We use the concept of arrebatos to describe the internal reckoning that Latino/a/x engineering students experience through their journeys, particularly focusing on the impact of socioeconomic inequalities.

Purpose

To bring counternarratives in engineering education research focusing on the experiences and lived realities of low-income Latino/a/x engineering students. These counternarratives are an important step in interrogating systemic biases and exclusionary cultures, practices, and policies at HSIs and emerging HSIs and within engineering programs.

Methods

Pláticas were conducted with 22 Latino/a/x engineering undergraduates from four different universities in the US Southwest. These pláticas were coded and analyzed drawing from Anzaldúa's theoretical concept of el arrebato. Special attention was given to participants' arrebatos triggered by their college experiences as low-income individuals.

Results

Analysis indicates that Latino/a/x engineering students' arrebatos arise from events that shake up the foundation of their own identity, including an institutional lack of sociopolitical consciousness. This lack of consciousness becomes evident not only in individuals' attitudes toward these students but also in institutional policies that put them at a further disadvantage.

Conclusions

Findings have implications for engineering programs, particularly at HSIs and emerging HSIs regarding the creation of policies and practices that aim to secure the retention of low-income Latino/a/x engineering students and alleviate the systemic barrier they face by affirming the practice of servingness.