How Latiné engineering students resist White male engineering culture: A multi‐institution analysis of academic engagement

Although participation rates vary by field, Latiné and women engineers continue to be underrepresented across most segments of the engineering workforce. Research has examined engagement and persistence of Latiné and White women in engineering; however, few studies have investigated how race, ethnicity, gender, and institutional setting interact to produce inequities in the field.


| RESISTING EXCLUSION IN ENGINEERING
Despite barriers such as racism and sexism, many students successfully resist marginalizing conditions in engineering. For example, research shows that resistance through role modeling, community outreach, and organizational memberships facilitates positive educational trajectories for Latiné engineering students (Revelo & Baber, 2018). However, more research on the experiences of women and Latiné engineering students is critical, as Latiné engineers comprise only 8% of the workforce (NSF, 2021). Additionally, research shows that race, gender, institutional context, and their interaction, are important to capture in analyses of student success in engineering (Ohland et al., 2011). For example, Verdin and Godwin (2018) found that first-generation Latina college students are impacted by their intersecting experiences of marginalization and that participation in programs designed to support their sense of belonging can serve as protective institutional supports. Furthermore, attending a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and gender have been shown to predict professional engineering identity among Latiné engineering students (Kendall et al., 2019). Although definitions vary, engineering identity is often conceived as one's sense of connection and belonging to the larger engineering professional community (Tonso, 2006). Latiné engineering students tend to be concentrated at HSIs, which the U.S. Department of Education defines as not-for-profit, degree granting institutions with an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students where at least 25% are Hispanic and 50% are receiving need-based assistance. HSIs, which represent 16% of all higher education institutions, graduate approximately 40% of Latiné engineers (NSF, 2021). However, it has been noted that the institutional characteristics of HSIs are diverse and that HSIs may vary greatly in the degree to which they successfully serve Latiné students (Garcia, 2019). Although the benefits of HSIs for Latiné engineering students have been documented in prior research , less is known about whether HSIs provide more affirming environments for Latiné women and men when compared to predominantly White institutions (PWIs).
The purpose of this study was to examine the academic engagement of Latiné and White women and men in undergraduate engineering majors at HSIs and PWIs using a qualitative research design. We aimed to further contextualize results of prior research (Flores et al., 2021;Navarro et al., 2019) and provide an in-depth description of how multiple frames of privilege and oppression converge to inform the academic engagement of Latiné and White engineering students. The research questions for this study were the following: (i) What barriers or challenges are faced by Latiné and White engineering undergraduates depending on their institution, race, ethnicity, and gender? and (ii) What factors support Latiné and White engineering undergraduates' academic engagement through the barriers and challenges they experience?

| THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
We used the integrative social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent et al., 2013) model to guide this study. For more than two decades, SCCT has emerged as a popular framework to capture the experiences of minoritized groups in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields (Fouad & Santana, 2017). The integrative SCCT model proposes that personal, cultural, and environmental resources shape self-efficacy and outcome expectations, or the positive or negative consequences one anticipates from pursuing a specific academic domain. Self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interests are proposed to collectively shape domain-specific goals, satisfaction, and persistence (Lent et al., 2013). Researchers have added academic engagement as a precursor to persistence in the model given its demonstrated importance in STEM domains and in academic outcomes of students from underrepresented groups in higher education .
Personal, cultural, and environmental resources include material and cultural socialization experiences that grant access to positive appraisals of performance, role models, encouragement, and feelings of comfort in a learning domain (Lent & Brown, 2006). For example, research has shown that Latiné engineering students leverage cultural strengths to navigate academic structures, create their own resources, and connect to communities of support (Denton & Borrego, 2021). In contrast, students already well represented in engineering may have been socialized to thrive in a culture of competition and individualism, and have no major obligations outside of school (Pawley, 2019). In this study, we also examined contextual barriers, or factors within one's environment that may impede career behavior (Lent & Brown, 2006). Within SCCT, resources and barriers are proposed to relate to academic engagement. For example, a Latina engineering student may disengage from work within a research lab because of a faculty member who subjects them to gendered racial microaggressions. Conversely, a student active in the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and Society of Women Engineers (SWE) may develop strong academic engagement and persistence intentions due to their perception that relationships they have formed through the organization will facilitate their ability to secure an attractive job after graduation. Research demonstrates that identity-based organizations can strengthen Latinas' professional identities as engineers (Rodriguez et al., 2022).
Quantitative studies employing the integrative SCCT model with Latiné and White engineering students have explored differences based on race and gender Navarro et al., 2014). However, these studies were conducted with students attending the same HSI, which may have obscured important differences dependent on institutional context. Additionally, tests for racial and gender differences in these studies confined comparisons to women and men as well as Latiné and White students. This strategy of comparison may have overlooked important differences based on race, gender, and institution for Latiné and White engineering students. For example, research has shown that institutional differences may outweigh gender differences in persistence among Asian, Black, Latiné, Native American, and White students (Ohland et al., 2011).
More recently, researchers (Flores et al., 2021;Navarro et al., 2019) tested SCCT models of academic engagement and persistence in engineering among Latiné and White women and men at HSIs and PWIs. The researchers examined differences in the associations between variables in the model based on combinations of race, gender, and institution. Results suggested that academic engagement was strongly related to persistence, but that this association may depend on complex interactions between race, gender, and institution type. Despite revealing the importance of capturing interactions between race, gender, and institution for engineering students, the range of supports and barriers assessed in this study was narrow. The authors recommended qualitative data sources as one way of addressing these study limitations .
Based on the extant body of literature and recommendations for future research in this area, we used an anti-deficit framework (Harper, 2010) and Cabrera's (2011) articulation of racial hyperprivilege to examine interactions between race, gender, and institution in engineering students' academic engagement. These frameworks were integrated with SCCT to capture particular forms of environmental, personal, and cultural factors within the theoretical model. For example, manifestations of privilege and oppression were framed as opportunities and supports or barriers in the SCCT model, respectively.
Anti-deficit frameworks shift the focus on individual explanations for achievement to the examination of systems, structures, and policies (Harper, 2010). Consistent with this approach, we also sought to highlight the assets of minoritized students in engineering, including the wisdom, skills, and experiences they bring to the field (Mejia et al., 2018). The concept of racial hyperprivilege was used to examine unique forms of privilege and oppression generated at the intersections of race and gender. That is, because Whiteness and maleness generally remain the default in engineering education and practice (Pawley, 2017), we sought to highlight how race and gender compound each other to produce unique experiences of White immunity, or the material, psychological, and interpersonal protections afforded by Whiteness and other privileged identities (Cabrera, 2018). Scholars have identified Whiteness in engineering as a set of assumptions, practices, and privileges designed to benefit White engineering students while maintaining a guise of invisibility and neutrality (Holly & Masta, 2021). Additionally, hyperprivilege interacts with, and is bound by, social structures of privilege and domination (Cabrera, 2011). Therefore, institutional context (PWI vs. HSI) also informed our analysis of race and gender privilege. Finally, we conceptualized academic engagement as demonstrated investment in academic activities (e.g., learning, completing projects, collaboration with peers), enthusiasm, and dedication to completing an engineering degree .

| Participants and procedure
Pseudonyms and demographic information for study participants is included in Table 1. Participants were recruited from 11 institutions in the United States as part of a larger study on the persistence of Latiné students in engineering (see Flores et al., 2021). Six of the institutions were HSIs and five were PWIs. Institutions were selected based on Department of Education data listing the top 40 US higher education institutions who awarded the most undergraduate engineering degrees to Latiné students. Both our PWI and HSI partnering institutions were located throughout the United States (i.e., northeastern, southeastern, southern, southwestern, and western US regions). All study procedures were approved by an institutional review board. Students first completed an online survey as part of a complementary quantitative study and volunteered to participate in a qualitative interview at the end of the survey. Participants who self-identified as "Hispanic or Latina/o" and "White, Caucasian, European, not Hispanic" were included in the study.
We attempted to stratify the sample based on race, gender, and institution such that there were relatively equal cells of participants within each possible category. Thirty-two participants completed both phases of interviews and were retained for data analysis. Participants included Latinas (n = 7), Latinos (n = 10), White women (n = 7), and White men (n = 8). Nine students attended HSIs (n = 1 Latina; n = 6 Latinos; n = 2 White men) and 23 attended PWIs (n = 6 Latinas; n = 4 Latinos; n = 7 White women; n = 6 White men). The percentage of women at institutions that were sampled for the study ranged from 24% to 56% and the percentage of White students at PWIs sampled for the study ranged from 55% to 60%. Additionally, the percentage of Latiné students at PWIs sampled for the study ranged from 13% to 22%. Finally, the percentage of Latiné students at HSIs sampled for the study ranged from 26% to 83% (College Factual, 2021). The average age of participants was 20.25 years with a range of 18-30 years.
Participants completed two 60-90-min interviews conducted 9 months apart to capture critical incidents and insights over the course of an academic year. Interviews were conducted virtually by a trained graduate research assistant using a secure video conferencing tool. Participants were provided with written and verbal informed consent and provided a digital signature indicating their willingness to participate in an interview. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. After completing each interview, participants were given a $25 (Time 1) and $50 (Time 2) gift card to an online store to compensate them for their time.
The research team developed a semi-structured interview protocol (see the Appendix). Interview questions were designed to align with conceptual dimensions of SCCT and covered the following domains: perceived gains and negative consequences of studying engineering (i.e., outcome expectations), self-efficacy, supports, challenges, organizational climate, relationships with students, relationships with professors, family expectations, and experiences of stereotyping, harassment, and discrimination (i.e., personal, cultural and environmental factors). For each of these Note: Race or ethnicity refers to how students self-identified on an initial survey used to recruit participants and any other self-identifiers used over the course of interviews. Abbreviations: HIS, Hispanic Serving Institution; PWI, predominantly White institution.
latter questions, participants were asked to reference their identities as Latina, Latino, White woman, or White man. The interview questions at Time 1 and Time 2 were identical, with the exception that questions asked at Time 2 prompted participants to reflect on their experiences in the past year. Additionally, one question was added at Time 2, which asked participants to reflect on factors that had motivated them to persist in engineering in the past year and another question that inquired about recommendations for training and support of engineering students. The original version of the interview protocol was pilot-tested with four engineering students at two of the researchers' institutions, which were both PWIs. Pilot study participants included one Latina, one Latino, one White woman, and one White man. Feedback was solicited from these pilot participants to improve the interview protocol. Only minor changes to wording to improve clarity were suggested by the pilot interviewees. These changes were made before using the interview protocol with participants for the study.

| Researchers and positionality statement
Five research team members, all of whom were counseling psychology doctoral students and were trained in qualitative interviewing by the first author, conducted interviews. Interviewers completed approximately 8 h of training before conducting their first interview. Training included reading articles, discussing interview techniques, conducting a supervised pilot interview, and receiving verbal and written feedback.
All authors assisted at various phases of the data analysis process. Two members of the team had prior experience conducting research on the persistence of Latiné and women students in engineering, and one team member was an engineering faculty member. All team members had experience as a faculty or student in a PWI, and one team member had experience as a faculty member at an HSI. The makeup of the research team reflected identities represented by participants in the study (i.e., Latinas, Latinos, White women, White men). The collective identities and experiences of the research team informed our belief that the environment-including broader ideologies of race and gender, organizational cultures, and environmental supports and barriers-play a critical role in student development. The experiences and training of team members also cultivated the standpoint that academic institutions have largely been designed to serve White students through curricular norms (e.g., weed out classes) and organizational resources (Ray, 2019). We therefore assert that improving equity in engineering is not a matter of "fixing" minoritized students, but rather a problem of organizational inertia and resistance to change.
All members of the team discussed a priori assumptions for the study based on prior knowledge and experience. Themes emerging from these conversations included the expectation that women and Latiné students would report more negative experiences with organizational culture, students, and faculty compared to White students and men; Latiné women and men as well as White women would report exposure to significant role models, and Latiné and White women would report experiences with harassment. We returned to these assumptions throughout data analysis in an intentional effort to highlight contradictions, avoid confirmation bias, and ensure that data from participant interviews was sufficient to support our interpretations.

| Data analysis
Thematic analysis was used to interpret and organize themes from the data. Within this broader approach, our ontological stance was aligned with critical realism, which acknowledges the reality of causal events, structures, and objects as well as the filtering of causal conditions through human experience and interpretation (Fletcher, 2017). Applied to the current study, we sought to honor the reality of oppressive structures that create inequity in engineering while also affirming the subjective accounts and strengths of participants as they interfaced with these structures. Critical realism was also appropriate for this study, as it adopts a flexible approach to incorporating existing theory and is ideal for identifying and critiquing social problems. That is, critical realism acknowledges the utility of extant theory while recognizing potential fallacies in the application of theory to all lived experience (Fletcher, 2017).
Data analysis steps followed guidelines provided for conducting thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Analyses for interviews at Time 1 and Time 2 were conducted simultaneously to deepen understanding, and ascertain a broader set, of personal, cultural, and environmental influences on students' academic engagement. In Phase 1, we familiarized ourselves with the data to gain an in-depth understanding of participants' experiences. Transcripts were divided equally between the first three authors, and each team member read through each transcript once, making memos of general impressions and insights. In Phase 2, the team generated initial codes for each of the transcripts they were assigned. These codes were interpreted individually by each team member and compiled into a start list of codes for future use. The start list of codes was reviewed collaboratively and synthesized by the coding team to eliminate redundancy and capture emergent patterns in codes. This resulted in 26 distinct codes, which were given preliminary meanings to guide future analyses.
Next, teams of two from the larger research team used the start list of codes to code seven to eight transcripts. Members of the smaller team individually coded each transcript and shared their coding with their partner. Then, the teams of two came back together to develop a consensus version of their codes based on feedback from their partner. If teams were unable to come to consensus on a specific code, they consulted the original team that developed the start list. The teams also created memos of their general impressions of each interview as well as whether codes seemed to be useful in capturing participant experiences. For example, if the existing codes did not capture an aspect of discrimination reported by a participant, this was noted and incorporated into a revised coding structure.
In Phase 3, the first three authors reviewed the coded transcripts and began to sort and combine codes into potential themes. All feedback from coding teams was integrated at this stage, and code titles and descriptions were revised as deemed necessary. Thematic maps were used at this stage of analysis to conceptualize relationships among the themes. Potential subthemes were also identified at this stage to organize the thematic structure into a lower level of abstraction. This process resulted in 4 themes and 16 subthemes, which were used for subsequent analyses.
In Phase 4, all members of the coding team used the preliminary thematic structure to review transcripts and determine how well the coding structure fit each participant's data. Transcripts were again divided equally between team members. At this stage, members of the team flagged themes that did not seem well defined or developed (e.g., were difficult to distinguish from other themes). One theme, originally titled Power, Privilege, and Oppression, at this stage was determined to be too broad and did not fully capture responses from White students in the study. Therefore, these themes were revised and split into two distinct themes with corresponding subthemes (Dominance of White Male Culture and Resistance). Another theme (Academic Environment) was also judged to be too broad and was integrated into the revised themes (Dominance of White Male Culture and Resistance).
In Phase 5, the first three authors developed a final thematic map and provided final definitions of each theme using one to two sentences. These final themes and the thematic map were provided to four members of the team to review. At this stage, the broader thematic structure was reviewed to ensure that it provided an accurate and rich description of the data. After receiving feedback, definitions for two of the subthemes (Cultural Wealth, Inclusive Conditions) received minor revisions. The final thematic structure included 4 themes and 15 subthemes.

| Trustworthiness
Several strategies were used to address trustworthiness in this study. We specifically attended to the following criteria for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research: social validity, subjectivity and reflexivity, adequacy of the data, and adequacy of interpretation (Morrow, 2005). Social validity was addressed through the solicitation of feedback on the interview protocol prior to data collection from engineering students and an engineering faculty member. Participants were also asked for their feedback on the interview protocol at the conclusion of each interview. Subjectivity and reflexivity were addressed through our attempts to make biases explicit before conducting interviews and analyzing data as well as our use of memos throughout the study to capture personal reactions to interviews and emerging insights. We also engaged in peer debriefing during the data analysis phase to discuss our reactions to interview content and perceptions of patterns in the data.
We ensured adequacy of the data by conducting two interviews with each participant at two different time points during their educational experience. These two time points were used to ensure comprehensive accounts of supports and barriers students may have experienced in their first 2 years of engineering education. We also engaged in purposeful sampling to recruit participants diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and institutional affiliation to gain a broad understanding of what we considered a complex phenomenon (Sandelowski, 1995) and to strengthen potential contrasts of experiences described by participants. Finally, we enhanced adequacy of interpretation by repeatedly reading transcripts and memos, integrating multiple perspectives to analyze data, and using rich participant quotes to substantiate interpretations of the data.
T A B L E 2 Summary of themes and subthemes by SCCT constructs.

Contextual barriers
Dominance of White male culture: Explicit and unspoken rules, norms, and organizational characteristics that center Whiteness as the default and advantage White men in engineering while pushing out historically marginalized students.
Gender marginalization and exploitation: Women are subjected to insidious racism, sexism, and gendered racism in engineering. Men cast women in engineering as unworthy, leading to higher standards and exploitation of women's labor.
Racial gaslighting: White students perpetuate racism and White supremacy through denial, distortion, discomfort, and anger to those who resisted (e.g., women or Latiné in engineering).
Individualism: a culture of relying on individual effort, promoting or relishing in competition, and desire for individual recognition or credit.

Psychological effects and practices
Unforeseen and anticipated barriers: Previously unforeseen obstacles participants faced or anticipated would accompany their pursuit of an engineering degree.
Normalized challenges: Anticipated or experienced stressors participants accepted as typical and part of pursuing an engineering degree.

Personal, cultural, and environmental resources
Resistance: Cultural, environmental, and personal antidotes to the dominance of White male culture in engineering. Resistance promotes the survival and thriving of marginalized groups in engineering via counter-cultures and spaces Cultural wealth: Strengths and assets cultivated by oppressed groups to remain resilient in the face of stressors. Leveraging strengths from family and social capital as well as one's own positionality (race, ethnicity, and/or gender) to navigate challenges and promote thriving.
Inclusive conditions: A culture of support and camaraderie is present among students and faculty. Students from historically marginalized groups are surrounded with students and faculty they can relate to or have access to counterspaces (e.g., home or community outside of their institution) where they feel they belong.
Awareness of male privilege: Men's ability to acknowledge their privilege and capacity to empathize, take perspective, and admit what they might not know or understand based on their positionality.
Intentional coping strategies: Conscious efforts to manage school and life stressors. Time management, organizational strategies, positive self-talk, and reflection are used to manage stress.
Self-efficacy Self-efficacy gains: Boosts in confidence to perform the tasks and demands of engineering over time.

| FINDINGS
Data analyses resulted in the generation of 4 themes and 15 subthemes (see Table 2). Themes are organized and presented by their relevance to the study's two research questions-barriers students experienced; and personal, cultural, and environmental resources that students leveraged to navigate them-as well as their relevance to SCCT constructs. Overall, findings illustrated how Latiné engineering students resisted the pervasive dominance of White male culture in engineering to advance their engagement in the field. Whiteness-which manifested as a culture of meritocracy that advantaged individualism, competition, and colorblindness-was resisted structurally at HSIs through the presence of Latiné faculty and administrators as well as targeted financial support. Whiteness was also resisted individually and interpersonally by Latiné students through norms of camaraderie, social responsibility, and altruism. Engineering majors with a higher critical mass of women tended to limit the dominance of male culture. Psychological effects and practices to cope with the demands of engineering were grounded in either conformity or resistance to White male culture, ultimately informing one's engineering identity. Across students, one's engineering identity played a significant role in engagement and satisfaction in the field. Furthermore, the strength and quality of a student's engineering identity was based upon perceived alignment between one's personal values and the culture of engineering as well as a sense of purpose for becoming an engineer.

| Dominance of White male culture
Across gender, race, ethnicity, and institution type, participants described explicit and implicit attitudes and norms that centered Whiteness, masculinity, or both as the default, and advantaged students with intersecting privileged identities (e.g., White and male, White woman at a PWI) who complied with this predominant culture. The dominance of White male culture in engineering appeared to play a role in students' sense of belonging in engineering as well as psychological responses to the culture of engineering and coping practices. There were three subthemes for this theme.

| Marginalization and exploitation of women
Participants described how men subjected women in engineering to insidious racism, sexism, and gendered racism. Frequently, these actions were portrayed as unconscious and unapparent to the perpetrator and most often they involved a fellow student or faculty member. Several stories shared by participants revealed comments or SCCT-related construct Theme Subtheme

Academic engagement
Engineering identity: Perceived congruence between values, norms of the student, and engineering that facilitates investment, enthusiasm, and dedication to completing an engineering degree.
Values congruence: Student perceives a sense of belonging with the shared identity, values, and norms of engineers.
Sense of purpose ( personal): Motivation to become and engineer is connected to personal benefits such as personal financial gain, fit with skills and interests, or desire to hold a high prestige job.
Sense of purpose (social): Motivation to become an engineer is connected to prosocial benefits such as improving society, helping one's family, solving social problems, and making others proud.
behaviors that were intended to be supportive or affirming, but were othering for the recipient. Latinas and White women across institution types reported not being taken seriously by their Latino and White male counterparts while often having to compensate for their male peers' limited contributions to group projects. These conditions often led Latinas and White women to believe they had to work twice as hard as their male peers to prove they belonged. The context of a student's institution and major also appeared to be important. Latinas and White women in majors with greater representation of women described more support and feeling less self-conscious, whereas women in maledominated majors more frequently described feeling self-conscious and needing to do more to provide evidence of their worth. Latinas at PWIs also described unique forms of marginalization. For example, some Latinas described being thrust into the stereotypical roles of a caregiver or maid in their work with groups of men at PWIs. As Isabella, a Latina/Hispanic student at a PWI, shared: In my research group I am also the only female, so as the only woman I guess-part of it was the professor made a comment at one point where one of the grad students said oh you're just saying that because our lab is kind of a mess and if you're sitting around waiting for something and you want to clean up, we need a woman's touch to organize. And the grad student said that that's because they're a mess. It's like, it's not so much you're female; I'm just kind of a messy grad student.
Elena, a Latina attending a PWI described how her labor was exploited in group projects: I mean … being a woman in engineering is a lot harder than people make it out to be, because like, it is sort of expected you do a little bit more to show that you actually know what to do. And then, when you end up being in a group project, usually how it statistically will be, if it is four people, then it will be three guys and one girl. And then, the one girl is the one who is actually serious and they actually have to make sure everyone is doing his job. And, it's like that. Everyone treats you like the mom or something like that. White women at PWIs described being held to higher standards than men academically and socially-specifically describing the hypervisibility of their physical appearance. Emily, a White woman at a PWI, described the added pressure of maintaining her physical appearance: Someone doesn't wear makeup, and it's just like "oh you look terrible." It's kind of like, "wow you're not ready to be here today." And I feel like guys don't get that as much. Today I actually had a mid-term this morning, but I did my makeup before the midterm … and people were like "oh you look so great today." "How do you look so great on a mid-term day?" It's just kind of you know that idea of like your outward appearance reflects how you're doing. Because I put on makeup, because I was in dress.
Both Latino and White men, regardless of institution, expressed a different view of women's experiences in engineering. In contrast to the stories told by women in the study, a number of men shared their belief that women were actually advantaged compared to men in engineering. Women also reported exposure to this belief via comments from peers and faculty. Bruno, a Latino at an HSI, provided an example of this viewpoint: Women are sometimes treated differently especially in engineering. I even see that. Sometimes they might get a little more special treatment from the professor, and even from the students especially. Because of the-I would go so far as to say 75% of the whole class is all guys. And there's very few girls. So, the few girls that are there naturally get all the attention from the guys, especially if like one girl is pretty, she doesn't have to worry, because she could go as far as to say she doesn't have to worry about doing the homework. Because they naturally get all the attention. But as a guy, I don't-I've never felt any treatment because it started off as almost all of them were males. Almost everyone is a male engineer. But I don't know, I guess women are always the ones that get treated differently in that aspect, whether it's good or bad, but I've mostly seen good.
In sum, Latinas and White women described examples of marginalization and exploitation that disrupted their academic engagement. Specifically, they highlighted interactions with faculty and students that reduced their desire to engage in research labs and diminished their capacity to focus on learning. In some cases, men's behavior created additional psychological and educational burdens for women that diminished their enthusiasm for engineering tasks and the field as a whole. This culture appeared to be reinforced by some men's perception that women advanced in their majors because of special treatment as opposed to their skills.

| Racial gaslighting
A subset of White participants across institutional settings demonstrated what has been identified in previous literature as racial gaslighting, or "the political, social, economic and cultural process that perpetuates and normalizes a White supremacist reality through pathologizing those who resist" (Davis & Ernst, 2019, p. 49). Specifically, White students perpetuated racism and White supremacy through denial, distortion, discomfort, and anger to those who resisted (e.g., Latiné students in engineering). Further, racial gaslighting was normalized by tactics such as positioning oneself as a minority, highlighting the diversity of the student body, calling attention to relationships the student had with people of color, and claiming that other attributes and social identities were ultimately more important for success than race. This group of participants appeared to manipulate information to fit within a White victimization narrative, deflect the conversation away from oppressive micro-and macro-level structures, and prioritize their comfort. In fact, White participants became visibly and audibly upset at the mention of race during the interview, or felt slighted due to their status as a White person. Although racial gaslighting occurred across White women and men, this latter phenomenon presented more frequently in interviews with White men attending HSIs for whom scholarship and internship opportunities for women and Latiné students appeared to be emotionally triggering. For example, Scott, a White man at an HSI, stated: I mean I guess right now there's always this talk about minority this, minority that. But I think that stuff should kind of go away, because long ago it wasn't like that, but now the White Caucasian males are gonna be the minority. So why is there all these different special treatments for people who were the minority, now we're [White people] the minorities. So, there should be no special treatment for anybody, it should be based on skill set. Not any ethnicity or any culture or background. You know, I understand if you're like a victim of domestic violence or you can't get help with the program, but like, those are special cases. But like, just because you're from Spain, you know, you shouldn't have special scholarships. Like, why can't I have that scholarship?
Logan, a White man at a PWI, denied his racial privilege while acknowledging the advantages bestowed upon men in his department: Um, as far as like privilege or anything, I don't think I had any more, but I will say that I like-as a guy I guess it is easier to make connections with other guys, since that's the majority of the class. It's you know, easier to find a study partner or what not. Cause you know, you can just be bros or whatever.
White students minimized the impact of race and racism in engineering, rendering Whiteness and the privileges afforded to White students invisible. At the same time, White students-and White men in particular-appeared to benefit from unspoken cultures of Whiteness (e.g., competition, meritocracy), which allowed them to devote more psychological energy toward their studies, as opposed to navigating identity-related barriers.

| Individualism
The final subtheme captured a culture of relying on individual effort, promoting competition, and desire for individual recognition. White men at PWIs were the primary drivers of this culture, although some White women also subscribed to meritocratic ideology. Cultures of individualism appeared most prevalent at PWIs. Garrett, a White man at a PWI, expressed gratitude for dividends the competitive culture of engineering had bestowed for him: For the most part it's been pretty good. Now that all the unsuccessful people have been weeded out of the program, it's been a lot nicer to been able to work with people who are competent and who can pull their weight in a group. So, it's been pretty good, overall positive.
Participants mentioned the experience of engaging in group projects a number of times, although these would appear to aid in dismantling a culture of individualism, White men frequently discussed strategic efforts aimed at ensuring their personal success, such as finding the right partners for class projects. However, other students described an organizational emphasis on individual effort. Logan, a White man at a PWI, shared: Beyond group work, teachers had a strict like, no peer collaboration project. And they had office hours but they weren't always available or able to help during those periods of time. So really the culture is very sink or swim. Like, you either survive by your own merits, or you are destined to fail. Some White women also endorsed the belief that individual effort was ultimately what determined personal and professional success in engineering. As Claire, a White woman at a PWI stated: Yeah, I feel like the amount of effort you put in, I feel like gender, it could be an issue. Some people are fairer or whatever. But I feel like it's definitely, definitely overshadowed by how hard you work and how much effort you put in. Even if someone is biased against women or biased against males even. If you work really hard, I feel like that can definitely be overcome in time.
White students emphasized meritocracy as key to their academic engagement and success. These attitudes appeared to align with the organizational cultures of their departments, which they perceived as rewarding individual effort and skills. In contrast, Latina and Latino students often referenced sink or swim cultures as oppressive forces that impeded their engagement in engineering.

| Psychological effects and practices
Participants across institutions described how the culture of engineering affected them emotionally as well as how they coped with stressors and challenges. Psychological effects and practices were influenced by the degree to which White male culture predominated students' departments and, for minoritized students, were embedded within resistance efforts. Although a number of issues noted in this theme seemed universal to engineering, such as learning how to manage one's time and getting used to the heavy workload of school, several were specific to particular groups of students. Women, and particularly Latinas, frequently mentioned concerns related to family planning and future employment. Latinas and Latinos both frequently discussed disconnection from family as a challenge as well as concerted efforts to maintain familial bonds during their studies. Although noted across institutions, these challenges were particularly pronounced at PWIs. There were four subthemes within this theme.

| Unforeseen and anticipated barriers
Participants discussed how previously unforeseen obstacles they faced or anticipated would accompany their pursuit of an engineering degree. This included future barriers students anticipated in their career. Concerns related to job-search discrimination appeared to become more salient for women, and particularly Latinas, as they approached more advanced stages of their training. Isabella, a Latina/Hispanic student at a PWI, shared her concerns regarding entering the engineering workforce: I might have a harder time getting a job just because they might expect me to quit and start a family, possibly. I don't plan to quit-I would like to keep working even if I do start a family but I don't know if it might be harder for me to find jobs simply because I might, they'll see me as a female-and Hispanics have a very strong pull toward family and are very family oriented. So, I don't know if that will affect me searching for careers.
Several other Latinas at both PWIs and HSIs mentioned this concern, noting tht the culture of engineering jobs might persuade employers to eliminate them from consideration due to the fear they would start families. This appeared to generate ambivalence regarding their intention to persist in the engineering workforce.

| Normalized challenges
Other students described anticipated or experienced stressors they accepted as part of pursuing an engineering degree. These often manifested as missing out on social activities, workload stress, and generally maintaining balance between school and other dimensions of life. Cole, a White man at a PWI, shared: It's just hard to balance everything as an engineering student. I think a lot of college students feel the same way, especially engineering. It's hard to balance all the things that you want to do in life and all the things you should be doing. Um … school takes up a really big chunk and so obviously, you have to give up a few things that you want to do maybe for me just hobbies like music, hiking, camping, that sort of thing.
As illustrated by Cole, White men within this theme tended to mention letting go of hobbies or recreational activities, whereas Latinas and Latinos more frequently mentioned relationships with friends and family. For example, Julia experienced distancing in close relationships during her internship: During the internship? Um … Just like being away from home was a definitely different. I did pay for everything while I was there, which felt like a big difference. Just knowing that I didn't have anyone to come and get me if I needed them too. So, I guess just hard not have all your close friends and family around.
Relational and gender-based barriers appeared to play a larger role in Latina and Latino students' feelings of disengagement from engineering. Specifically, they appeared to interfere with students' investment in their academic work and raised concerns about their viability in the field.

| Resistance
Latinas and White women described cultural, environmental, and personal resistance to the dominance of White male culture in engineering. Many of these strategies were apparent at HSIs, which appeared to provide structural conditions supportive of resistance efforts. These included faculty and administrators representative of the student body and a culture of support and camaraderie. At PWIs, organizations such as SHPE and SWE provided communities of support for Latina and Latino students. Resistance promoted the thriving of Latiné students in engineering via counter-cultures and spaces.

| Cultural wealth
Latina and Latino students at HSIs and PWIs leveraged cultural strengths and assets to remain resilient in the face of stressors they encountered over the course of their studies. Specifically, students relied on strengths from family and social circles as well their positionality (racial and ethnic identity, and gender) to navigate challenges and promote thriving. Cultural wealth provided a buffer to the dominance of White male culture and also strengthened students' engineering identity. Camila, a Latina/Hispanic student attending an HSI, shared her views on how her cultural background served as a source of strength: So, I feel like in Hispanic families, your family is very supportive of you and what you want to do and they will always back you up. Like, if you need a car, we'll freakin' find a way to get you a car so you can drive yourself to school. Or if you need money to eat, they're going to be like, okay here! But we don't expect a hand out exactly … a lot of us. I don't know, I feel like a lot of our dads are like the same guy. The way they work really hard, they work from sunrise to sunset and even past that. So, I feel like a lot of us have had similar upbringings so we kind of like think the same … not think the same but think similarly. Like, we agree on the way things should be. For example, if there is some kind of indecision about what an organization should do, or like what we do as a group, we're kind of like think, why don't we do this, because of this, it would be better for the group.
Leveraging cultural strengths to navigate engineering appeared to increase students' academic engagement by creating a shared sense of collective struggle and purpose. Students were able to draw from their cultural values to remain grounded in why they were pursuing a degree and remain focused on succeeding as a group.

| Inclusive conditions
Latinas, Latinos, and White women across institution types discussed the role of professional organizations such as SHPE and SWE as well as community relationships in promoting their engagement in engineering. Latina and Latino students at HSIs described a culture of support and camaraderie among students and faculty. Latinas, Latinos, and White women at HSIs and PWIs described the positive effects of being surrounded with students and faculty they could relate to or having access to counterspaces (e.g., home or community outside of their institution that validated their racial, ethnic, and gender identities) where they felt they belonged. Inclusive conditions were more often present in engineering majors with a higher proportion of women, such as civil engineering. A number of other students described the benefits of student organizations in their professional development. Santiago, a Latino at a PWI, described the comfort he experienced as a SHPE member: I guess it feels like it's easier to kind collaborate with people of, for me like, it feels a lot easier for me to collaborate with people in SHPE because I feel like the level of being closer with them, so for me it feels easier to do it with them. It doesn't feel like there needs to be as much of a buildup or like as much of a promise there, like with the other Latinos in the field it feels like an easier connection to make.
Other students described the power of role models in facilitating their engagement and shaping their career pursuits. Role models included advanced students, faculty, as well as engineering professionals. Some Latina and Latino students discussed the significant impact of exposure to a role model or mentor who shared their positionality, while others spoke to the value of role models and mentors more generally. Victoria, a Latina at a PWI stated: So, I think seeing role models, seeing role models and having mentors that like, you either have through a position like a supervisor, like a professor, or just mentorship that you just like, take upon, like I met a couple engineers and I'm like, "I want to do what you do, can we get coffee?" And like, you just kind of create those networks where you have like, a mentor, not like "oh you're my mentor," but just asking them for little favors and they help you out and talk about how engineering life is going, that's been crazy, crazy important for me as a Latina engineer.
Personal connections along with a sense of community strengthened minoritized students' engineering identity and provided a buffer the effects of marginalization on academic engagement. Although they appeared more accessible at institutions or in majors with a critical mass of women or Latiné students, participants also appeared to be very resourceful in terms of locating sources of support for their professional development. For example, at PWIs, Latiné student peers and organizations often directed students to available supports and resources or formed their own organic support systems (e.g., study groups) as a form of capital that increased academic engagement.

| Awareness of male privilege
Another form of resistance manifested in students' ability to acknowledge their privilege and capacity to empathize, take perspective, and admit what they might not know or understand based on their positionality. Race was rarely acknowledged as a seat of privilege by White students across institutions. However, a few men (Latino and White) were able to reflect on their advantages based on gender. Martin, a Latino at an HSI, described his efforts to disrupt sexist attitudes and behavior in his department: I mean like-you know, joking between guys at the office, they'll be like, "oh so are you gonna make a move" and all that kind of stuff, and I'm like "dude, just because we're-she's the new girl in the office and I'm the new guy in the office, doesn't mean that I need to make moves or anything like that, we're in a business setting." So, it's-I don't know, to be fair, to be honest, being a male in engineering is just normal. It hasn't really made any difference at all. I can only imagine what it's like being a female engineer though.
Actions taken by men to disrupt sexism appeared to establish a more accommodating environment for Latina and White women's academic engagement. Specifically, it appeared to take the onus off women for intervening in oppressive behavior and increase psychological and emotional space for focusing on learning.

| Intentional coping strategies
Participants discussed strategies they used to cope with the challenges of their engineering major. These included conscious efforts to manage school and life stressors. Time management, organizational strategies, positive self-talk, and reflection were commonly used to manage stress across race and gender. Students frequently described a process of learning how to prioritize school-related tasks and plan their day. A number of Latina and Latino students across institutions discussed early adjustments that were needed to balance school with family. Alejandro, a Latino at an HSI, described this process of coping: I think the first thing was staying motivated. You know, because I think if I wasn't motivated, I would be kind of failing that being able to balance things. I would choose to spend my time doing one thing, maybe like … Um … kind of like let my relationships suffer, and stuff, but I've been working most of all my time to managing this, so I could balance as you said, because I really have to balance everything. Doing that … also communicating with my family, with my peers, even with my professors. I think being able to communicate with them really help me cope with the challenges. You know, being honest with them, telling them you are struggling, and things like that.
As demonstrated in Alejandro's statement, many students indicated that having someone to talk to in order to process their struggles was helpful. In fact, several participants noted how helpful completing an interview about their experience as an engineering student had been, sharing that talking about their experience had given them a chance to reflect, take perspective, and recall their reasons for pursuing engineering.

| Self-efficacy gains
Intentional coping strategies seemed to foster students' confidence to perform the tasks and demands of engineering over time. Across students, using engineering knowledge and skills to successfully solve problems in classes or internships seemed to play a prominent role in increasing their sense of engineering self-efficacy. For minoritized students, and regardless of their institutional setting, exposure to role models, supportive peers, and organizational supports appeared to play a more prominent role in fostering self-efficacy. Gender differences within this subtheme also emerged. Specifically, men more frequently discussed the process of mastering content, whereas women tended to discuss the process of feeling more confident with engineering-related tasks. Mateo, a Latino at an HSI, described his experience mastering class-related content: The first year was tough. Perhaps, was the toughest I ever had in engineering at all. But I realized that its, its, more of getting to know the basic equations and you can derive everything from that. And every field has one or two or maybe three basic equations and you can derive everything from that. Some people tend to memorize all of them, but I don't. I realize that you can get everything you want from those core equations if you have a decent understanding of the math.
Self-efficacy gains appeared to strengthen students' academic engagement by enhancing their enjoyment of engineering tasks and increasing their understanding of how they might use their skills in the field in the future.

| Engineering identity
A strong engineering identity appeared to be a key factor in students' engagement in engineering. The strength of a student's engineering identity was predicated on the perceived congruence between their values and norms and those they perceived in the engineering field. Specifically, a sense of belonging with one's peers appeared to play a significant role in a student's perceived congruity. Additionally, having a sense of purpose also contributed to the saliency and strength of students' engineering identity in the present study.

| Congruence of values
Access to inclusive conditions, adaptive coping practices, and capacity to leverage cultural wealth all appeared to play a significant role in the development of congruence of values for minoritized students-or perception that their views regarding what was important and beneficial for establishing a supportive academic culture were reflected in the atmosphere of their department or major. In many cases, congruence between personal and perceived organizational values appeared to converge more readily within institutions or majors where critical mass of minoritized students had been achieved. Camila, a Latina/Hispanic student at an HSI, illustrated these connections: We have a lot of pride here [at the institution]. I feel that we do take the responsibility of like, okay-we're going to be doing stuff in the public. I hope other schools emphasize that. We do have the public's lives in our hands. I feel like we do have a responsibility, especially with the environmental issues and that's going to be something that affects everybody.
Latina and Latino students across institution types frequently referenced a culture of collaboration as facilitating their sense of belonging in the engineering field. Julia, a Latina at a PWI, discussed a perceived shift in culture within her department that took place over her early to more advanced classes, noting the collaborative shift had helped her feel a greater sense of congruence with the academic norms of her peers: I've found that a lot of us have as opposed to, like, our first two years, our freshman and sophomore year when we were very like, you know, "it's all about me, and I'm here to do my best and I don't care about you." But we all kind of realized like, we're all kind of in this boat together, and, like, we need each other. So, I felt like this year I got a lot of help from other people that were in my classes and I collaborated with them on a lot of my assignments. Or studying together, just because for now it wasn't a matter of, like, you know, "I'm trying to get a better grade than you," it was a matter of like, "I'm trying to pass this class and understand what's going on and so are you, so let's try and figure it out together." Several other students at PWIs-including White students-described a similar pattern of competitiveness the first 2 years of their program, which eventually eased into a spirit of collaboration. This transition seemed to follow an acknowledgement that students needed their peers to succeed and shared mutual goals.
Not all participants reported a sense of congruence of values within their department. Some reported a mismatch between their personal value systems and the messages conveyed by faculty and students. Valentina, a Latina at a PWI shared an example of the culture in her department that made it more challenging to experience a sense of congruence of values: I'm with a group of chemical engineering here that are a little more, I would say-like environmentally motivated, or just like, less money-focused. But I kind of feel like the chemical engineering department has way too strong of a focus on money and I don't like it at all. They kind of bring us into this, like, "oh, you guys are just here to make money, you just want to go into oil or do something, want to get rich." Our intro to chemical engineering professor described it as, chemical engineers make cheap things into expensive things. And having that culture I just really hate.
Although the focus of the department on financial gain was incongruent with Valentina's values, her friendships with chemical engineers who valued environmental justice appeared to buffer the negative impact of this feature on her engagement in the field.

| Sense of purpose
The final subtheme addressed students' sense of purpose in the engineering field. Within this subtheme, responses typically feel into two categories: personal and social. A sense of personal purpose captured a student's motivation to become an engineer due to personal benefits such as personal financial gain, fit with skills and interests, or desire to hold a high-prestige job. In contrast, the sense of social purpose reflected the motivation to become an engineer due to prosocial benefits such as improving society, helping one's family, solving social problems, and making others proud.
Although students from all backgrounds endorsed both personal and social sense of purpose, Latina and Latino students, regardless of institution type, more frequently cited prosocial benefits as central to their pursuit of an engineering degree, while White students tended to discuss personal benefits. The focus on individual rewards such as money, prestige, and entering a career aligned with one's curricular interests and skills was most often endorsed by White men, as exemplified by Logan, a White man at a PWI: "(Laughing.) Ah, to be rich, successful, and powerful. (Laughs.) I-like -That's what society's idea is. I guess minus the powerful part I hope to be rich and successful. (Laughs)." Latina and Latino students often described a desire to help their communities of origin, ignite social change, or serve as a positive example to others. As Lucia, a Latina at a PWI, said: I just cite an example to join the Brazilian organization that I'm in. I felt that I need to be one person that helps the Brazilian community to improve our education. So, this expectation of being a leader, an example, even though we have challenges, motivated me to join the organization. Because we want to have a better Brazil. And this would be by helping those students first. Because they should be empowered by organizations through mentorship, conferences. They can be the generation that can help to improve our country.
Social justice motives inspired students to take part in student organizations, persist through challenges, and derive meaning from their academic pursuits.

| DISCUSSION
Guided by SCCT, anti-deficit, and racial hyperprivilege frameworks, we examined experiences of Latina, Latino, and White women and men in undergraduate engineering majors at HSIs and PWIs. We specifically attended to how these engineering undergraduates' multiple intersecting social identities (i.e., gender, ethnicity-personal and cultural resources) and institutional contexts (i.e., environmental resources) shaped their academic engagement. Our findings suggest that engineering identity was a key factor in students' academic engagement. Internalization of, or resistance to, oppressive forces and their accompanying psychological responses also were informed by students' intersecting identities and institutional contexts.
Participants described an academic culture that centered Whiteness, maleness, or both, resulting in the othering of Latinas and White women (contextual barrier). This seemed to serve as a barrier to engagement in academic activities such as research labs and group projects. This phenomenon was also noted in previous research with Latina engineering undergraduates who persisted in engineering at one HSI . While these Latinas acknowledged the benefits of attending an institution where they were visibly represented, they still cited experiences of exclusion from learning activities, tokenism, and harassment that diminished their educational experiences . Thus, the present study, along with previous research, points to the importance of supporting resistance strategies that will dismantle gendered racism (contextual barrier) across engineering academic environments at both PWIs and HSIs.
White women undergraduate engineering students at PWIs in this study described being held to higher standards than men in terms of work productivity and quality. They also described feeling pressure to be attractive and presentable in training and educational spaces so that they were pleasing to their male faculty and peers (contextual barrier). However, some of these White women participants also internalized and reinforced the norms and values of White male culture, specifically individualism, in that they shared examples of how sexism could be overcome through increased academic effort in and of itself (personal resource) without acknowledging that such tactics and experiences may not be provided to their Latina peers. Reliance on individual effort to overcome challenges-which has also been described as resilience or grit-seemed to facilitate White women's engagement in coursework and team-based learning. However, White women engineering undergraduates' adherence to individualism to overcome sexism is an interesting tactic given that many White and male engineering undergraduates tended to be unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that such oppressive systems, or marginalizing conditions, existed. Although assimilation may serve as an effective short-term survival strategy for White women in engineering, it may ultimately be unproductive in the long term, given the disproportionate rates of White women who eventually leave the engineering field (NSF, 2021).
These findings support previous qualitative research (Cabrera, 2014) that showed White men college students across disciplines could not or would not provide examples of racism, minimized their own power and the power of racism, and centered White victimization by blaming minorities for their own oppression. In the present study, this also extended to Latino engineering students who did not provide many examples of their own experiences of racism, but who joined with their White male engineering peers in claims of "reverse sexism" when talking about women engineering students.
Latina, Latino, and White women engineering undergraduates in the present study shared narratives of active resistance to the dominance of White male culture, which seemed to strengthen their engineering identities and academic engagement. While narratives of resistance were shared from Latinas, Latinos, and White women at HSIs and PWIs, the availability and effectiveness of these strategies appeared to be dependent on structural conditions that support such resistance efforts. Indeed, resistance strategies were more apparently supported at HSIs where engineering undergraduates described a cultural support and camaraderie among students and faculty (environmental factor). On the other hand, similar to Revelo and Baber's (2018) findings, ethnic-and gender-specific student organizations (i.e., SHPE and SWE) and majors with proportionately more women (environmental factor) provided access to some resistance strategies (e.g., role modeling, collective resistance, leveraging strengths, disrupting all White male spaces, creating counterspaces) for Latina, Latino, and White women engineering undergraduates at PWIs.
It is important to note that both psychological effects and practices documented in the narratives of engineering undergraduates were influenced by institutional (i.e., HSI vs. PWI) and department context (e.g., increased proportions of women) or were embedded within resistance strategies employed by marginalized students. For example, women at PWIs, particularly Latinas, cited concerns that they would face future job search discrimination based on stereotypes and assumptions that they would quit their jobs after having children despite having no intention or desire to do so. Such perceived contextual barriers may be well founded, as previous experimental field research has demonstrated a tendency for participants (e.g., STEM faculty) to hire and pay men more than women (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012). Women have also reported quitting engineering due to organizational barriers and unsupportive workplace climates (Fouad et al., 2011). Given the demands of majoring in engineering, both Latinas and White women and men engineering undergraduates in this study made efforts to normalize personal and professional challenges. However, White students, particularly White men at PWIs, normalized the need to give up hobbies, whereas Latinas and Latinos at both PWIs and HSIs normalized the challenge of giving up time for relationships with friends and family. This difference could point to cultural differences in the importance of relationships (personal and cultural resources); however, it could also point to the privilege of having the time and resources for hobbies (personal and cultural resources).
In the face of perceived contextual barriers and the need to normalize challenges, engineering undergraduates in the present study detailed using intentional coping strategies and making gains in their self-confidence related to engineering itself (i.e., self-efficacy gains). Additionally, applied engineering experiences contributed to increased selfconfidence for all engineering undergraduates in the present study. Yet, access to role models, supportive people in their lives (e.g., family, peers, and professors), and organizational supports that decreased their stress (e.g., inclusive classrooms and majors, student organizations) were cited as crucial factors in the increased self-confidence for both Latiné and women specifically. These findings support SCCT propositions that successful performance, access to role models, and vicarious learning are central in bolstering self-efficacy and that access to these experiences are afforded based on interlocking systems of privilege and oppression enacted with universities, colleges, departments, programs, and courses.
Findings regarding engineering identity showed that Latina and Latino engineering undergraduates most frequently cited the importance of giving back to their families and communities of origin by solving social problems, whereas White engineering undergraduates tended to highlight the importance of financial security, career prestige, and a strong fit with their skills and interests as important to their engagement in the field. These findings corroborate previous research documenting that Latiné undergraduate students place a high value on equity in their pursuit of STEM degrees (E. McGee & Bentley, 2017) and that engineering identity may be informed by one's positionality (Kendall et al., 2019). The current study extends these findings, demonstrating how this equity ethic may manifest in engineering specifically. Additionally, these findings suggest that conceptualizations of engineering identity that de-emphasize prosocial motives may, at the very least, fail to fully capture the construct for Latiné students, and, at worst, unintentionally reify a White racial frame when conceiving how one adopts a strong engineering identity.

| Limitations and future research
The findings of this study should be considered in light of several limitations. First, there was an imbalance between students at HSIs (n = 9) and PWIs (n = 22) and only one Latina at an HSI, which together may limit the scope of our findings. For example, it is challenging to extrapolate the extent to which HSI contexts may or may not be protective for Latina engineering students. Additionally, HSIs vary widely in the degree to which they center Latiné students in their mission (Garcia, 2019). Therefore, the smaller number of students attending HSIs in this study may have obscured some of these nuances. Second, Latina and Latino engineering students were grouped into one monolithic sample. This approach obscures the nuances by racial and ethnic group, immigration status, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and other factors that should be considered in Latiné engineering students' engagement. Future studies should strive for a more balanced sample and disaggregate students by the aforementioned groupings when considering the impact of institutional forces (e.g., racial, ethnic, and gender composition of university administrators, faculty, and staff) on academic engagement in engineering. Additionally, the HSIs sampled for the study varied widely in terms of Latiné student representation. This may have obscured important differences in experiences across HSIs with regard to the extent to which the institution centers service to Latiné students.
Along with concerns about the balance and representativeness of the sample, all participants in the study were persisting in their degree program. Thus, their experiences may be less representative of students who are not performing as well or who have left engineering. We recommend investigations that explore the reasons students decided to leave engineering and to differentiate between students who departed early versus late in their engineering education.
Finally, participants were in different years of their engineering degree programs, with a majority in their second year of study. Despite not explicitly examining the impact of such experiences on engineering persistence, participants described difficulties that emerged during the first 2 years of their engineering education. Our findings are limited in the extent to which they uncovered challenges particular to the third year of study and beyond. Additionally, the findings provide only a snapshot of how participants framed engagement in engineering. Data were not analyzed longitudinally, which limited our ability to uncover changes in supports and barriers over time. Taken together, these limitations provide an opportunity for future researchers to be intentional about including years of study experience, in tandem with other individual and systemic factors, in understanding engineering persistence. When doing so, it would behoove researchers to use longitudinal and historical analytical approaches to illuminate how experiences and context impact engineering students' understanding of their academic engagement across time.

| Practical implications
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) efforts are critical for the future of engineering (Metcalf et al., 2018;Weissmann et al., 2019). Broadening participation in engineering must move beyond compositional markers of success to implementing radical approaches that begin with seeing students as people who are navigating the dominant White male culture of the field (Ong et al., 2020). Furthermore, such radical approaches need to incorporate system-level strategies that dismantle White male cultural dominance and create inclusive engineering cultures that center minoritized students' experiences, in the case of this study, Latiné and women engineering students.
Thus, it is imperative that administrators and faculty within engineering examine, acknowledge, and dismantle reliance on White male cultural norms, values, processes, and behaviors embedded within engineering education curriculum, policies, and environments that threaten the success of Latiné and White women engineering students. The outcome of such transformative action should be the creation and implementation of curriculum, policies, practices, and environments that are inclusive and responsive to Latiné and women students.
At a curriculum level, engineering educators can use information from this study to redesign their educational approaches using an equity lens. For example, Latiné students often referenced how a culture of collaboration affected their sense of belonging. To bridge the disconnect between marginalized students and their educational context, engineering professionals must take into account how learning preferences can be shaped by the culture of origin or community characteristics (Weissmann et al., 2019). Furthermore, in creating a culture of collaboration, it would behoove educators to institute grading systems that center around such collaboration rather than individual effort. Importantly, engineering faculty should be trained in inclusive and anti-racist teaching practices, such as how to identify and intervene in racist and sexist microaggressions. Steps may include co-creating clear norms and expectations for addressing micro-and macro-aggressions in class, conducting periodic check-ins with students to assess the learning environment, returning to established class norms, and instituting accountability measures for behavior that creates a hostile learning environment. Instructors may also evaluate group projects, in part, on a student's collaborative skills and contributions to hold students accountable and prevent sexist patterns of group work. Additionally, cultivating and supporting an inclusive learning environment should be taken into account in annual evaluations of teaching performance. To support engineering educators in curriculum revision and development using an equity lens, engineering college deans and department chairs could provide professional development funds or course release time to demonstrate that such work is valued and necessary within their institutions.
At a systems level, strategies to improve belonging and value congruence for Latiné and women engineering students are crucial. Latina and Latino students provided examples of how outreach efforts, organizational supports, and Latiné faculty mentors strengthened their engineering identity and engagement in the field. These findings corroborate with previous studies focusing on underrepresented students in STEM and mechanisms that increase their engagement and retention (Lee et al., 2015). Multiyear and long-term student recruitment strategies that highlight community and social impacts of engineers could be implemented to strengthen perceived alignment in values between prospective engineering students and the field. Such recruitment strategies counter-frame traditional recruitment pitches and focus on the prosocial aspects of being an engineer. Partnerships with firms known for recruiting a diverse pool of employees could also expand minoritized students' capacity to see themselves in the field.
Latinas and White women mentioned not being taken seriously by male counterparts, being asked to fulfill stereotypical roles (e.g., cleaning the lab), or receiving comments about their physical appearance. It should be noted that some of these comments also came from engineering faculty, which signals that similar behavior from students is acceptable (Metcalf et al., 2018;Ong et al., 2020). To hold faculty and administrators accountable for upholding an ethic of equity, annual evaluations and annual contracts should include a focus on creating and sustaining an inclusive environment. Administrators and faculty who continue to engage in oppressive behaviors after these patterns are brought to their awareness should be provided performance improvement plans with clear consequences if said behaviors continue. Human Resources and Equal Opportunity Offices should work with administrators to ensure that appropriate procedures are followed and eliminate barriers to reporting.
Job search discrimination was another concern for Latinas and White women. Owing to stereotypes about women and family planning, participants suspected they would be less likely to be considered for an engineering position. Engineering educators would do well to open these conversations with students, connect them with other women in engineering, and advocate for family-friendly policies and cultures in the field.
Additionally, participants expressed that talking to others in their program was cathartic and that being interviewed for the study helped them gain perspective. These findings suggest that institutions should provide access to peer networks for support and create confidential spaces where students can discuss their experiences without retaliation. Listening to the experiences of those affected by injustice can be one way of undoing historical neglect and improving marginalized students' mental and physical health and changing the exclusionary culture of engineering (Ong et al., 2020).
To move toward equity in engineering, institutions must commit time, effort, and resources as a means to fight against organizational inertia and resistance to change. Thus, we argue that true change necessitates transformative action that addresses policies and practices with clear accountability for inaction. It must be clear who is charged with making institutional change, how such change will be evaluated within annual evaluations, and what the consequences are for inaction or the continued engagement in oppressive behaviors.

| Conclusion
Our first research question was "what barriers or challenges are faced by Latiné and White engineering undergraduates depending on their institution, race, ethnicity, and gender?" Findings from this study show that institutional and department cultures produced unique barriers for Latina, Latino, and White engineering students. Specifically, institutional cultures that aligned with White male culture appeared to advantage White men while excluding Latinas, Latinos, and White women. However, there was nuance to the exclusion experienced by each group, with advantages and disadvantages experienced at the intersections of race and gender. Specific barriers ranged from reduced free time (White men) to gendered racism within research lab settings (Latinas). Notably, the impact of barriers on academic engagement between student groups appeared disproportionate, ranging from difficulty balancing social and academic obligations to navigating a hostile academic environment.
Our second research question was "what factors support Latiné and White engineering undergraduates' academic engagement through the barriers and challenges they experience?" Latinas, Latinos, and White women who engaged in resistance to the dominance of White male culture and practiced intentional coping strategies appeared to see gains in their engineering self-efficacy, engineering identities, and academic engagement. Alignment in values and a strong sense of prosocial purpose were critical in enhancing the academic engagement of Latina and Latino students. These findings point to the need for engineering academic majors, departments, and colleges to take radical actions to improve the experiences of Latiné and White women undergraduates. Only through institutional transformation can engineering education reduce disparities and achieve equitable outcomes.