Engineering for community justice: Exploring story constellations in a youth engineering program

Abstract

Background

Engineering education has transformative potential, yet underrepresented youth, particularly students of color, remain disconnected from opportunities to see themselves as future engineers. Integrating social justice into engineering education offers a pathway to engage these students by linking technical skills to real-world, community-based problems.

Purpose/hypothesis

We examined how participants in a justice-oriented engineering camp for middle school youth of color made sense of their engagement with the camp's justice-oriented curriculum. Specifically, we explored how mentees, undergraduate mentors, and teacher mentors narrated their experiences and how their stories interconnect to illuminate the relational terrain on which justice-oriented engineering education unfolds.

Design/method

We used the story constellations approach, drawing on focus groups and individual interviews to analyze the interconnected experiences of each group across 3 years of camp programming. We used open and a priori coding methods before analyzing data through the process of broadening, burrowing, and restorying.

Results

We highlight three key themes: (1) engineering for social justice, where participants connected engineering projects to community issues such as safety, hunger, and environmental justice; (2) educational impact and growth, which revealed the development of technical skills, leadership, and social awareness; and (3) community, where collaboration was noted as central to learning and problem-solving.

Conclusions

Justice-oriented engineering education has the potential to transform students' technical knowledge and social responsibility, particularly for underrepresented youth in STEM. Our findings suggest that combining engineering content with community-based social justice goals deepens engagement, enhances learning outcomes, and fosters a sense of responsibility among future engineers.