Engineering for Equity: Exploring the Intersection of Engineering Education, Family Learning, Early Childhood, and Equity

Over the last year we have been able to take a few hours each week to step back from our current work, reflect on our assumptions, learn from others, and explore new ways that our research could both uncover and help dismantle inequities and racism in the STEM education system. This eBook, and the series of blog posts on which it is based, is the result of these conversations and this reflective process. Our goal is to explore the themes and ideas that emerged from the year and how these might fundamentally change the way we think about STEM, work with families and children, and conduct research. We also hope this resource will serve as a catalyst for ongoing discussions within and beyond the STEM education research community. In the following chapters, we reflect on a variety of topics, including approaches to collaborating with families, asset-based perspectives on STEM education, and equity- based strategies for engaging families with engineering. While our reflections focus on engineering education and our work with families, we believe the themes that emerged for us over the last year have implications across STEM domains and learning contexts.