“I hold more assets that help me navigate through my world than I had previously thought”: Community cultural wealth student reflections during an engineering study abroad program

Abstract

Background

Community cultural wealth (CCW) has become more widely used as a theoretical framework in engineering education research. However, limited studies illustrate the use of CCW within the classroom, and it is unknown how engineering students would interpret or respond to the framework.

Purpose/Hypothesis

The goal of the study was to understand how students of color conceptualize the forms of capital and make connections between capital and their own lives, following a CCW-based intervention.

Design/Method

A classroom intervention involving four written reflections and one lecture based on CCW was incorporated into a technical engineering elective taught during a month-long study abroad course for students from one US university. This paper considers responses from the final reflection, which we deductively coded for the six forms of CCW capital and inductively coded to analyze students' perceptions of each.

Results

Following the intervention, students described how their lived experiences provided them with valuable forms of capital that can help them reach their personal and professional goals. All six forms of capital resonated with students, and they shared concrete ideas for how they planned to use their identified assets after returning home from study abroad.

Conclusions

Counterstories emerged from the students in their responses to the reflection prompts. The detail provided in the reflections and framing of certain life experiences as assets suggest that students benefitted from learning about the framework. We recommend further development of CCW-based interventions for the classroom and in extracurricular settings.