WIP: How traumatic events help shape social exclusion in engineering teams

This Work In Progress (WIP) research paper explores the impact of traumatic events on student learning alongside the emergence of team roles and belongingness in first-year engineering course. Previous work studying engineering culture has noted a divide between social and technical content, the emergence of a chilly climate, and that this culture influences engineering teams. While previous research has examined engineering culture, limited work has explored how these elements intersect and are enacted. For our study, we seek to understand how students working on a first-year engineering design team negotiate their team roles and experiences. Specifically, we examine the complex interactions between an all female team and the tensions that arose amidst conflicts with inclusion, power dynamics, and an unannounced traumatic life event. We show how these tensions might contribute to a chilly climate in engineering education not just from the dominant masculine culture but also from peer interaction.