Low socioeconomic status individuals : an invisible minority in engineering

Not only does engineering lose the diversity of experiences that students from different socioeconomic backgrounds bring, but the field commits a social injustice by systematically excluding people from a lucrative profession. The authors posit that this injustice is not intentional, but is rather due to a lack of awareness, and so we present this chapter to give the reader a glimpse into the lives of low SES students. Using Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) as a framework, we discuss the barriers at every stage of pursuing and completing an engineering degree—barriers that affect low SES students in particular. Not only have we presented the statistics, we have also added low SES students’ statements from multiple sources, including dissertations, interviews, outreach programs, and personal communications, to help illustrate the conditions this population faces and to increase awareness of the value they bring.