Infrastructural Elements to Fostering Educational Equity in Engineering

As students face communication challenges in team settings, some may feel marginalized because of their identity. Educators play an important role in creating an equitable learning environment. However, there are rhetorical issues in the infrastructure of the learning environment that may hinder the educator's capacity to intervene in meaningful and impactful ways. We integrate frameworks from the domain of engineering education with the domain of technical and professional communication to facilitate ways to foster educational equity in engineering education. Our study seeks to gain first-hand insight from both marginalized students and faculty. We present the analysis method and preliminary results in this paper. Our study sheds light on how institutions can enhance classroom interaction to benefit diverse groups.