CAREER: Engineering Design Across Navajo Culture, Community, and Society

This paper presents integrated research and education methods for exploring how to engage and evaluate Navajo students in culturally-contextualized engineering design curricula. Under the theoretical frameworks of social constructivism and culturally relevant pedagogy, this study proposes to: (1) explore the ways in which Navajo students and Navajo professionals experience and understand engineering design in the context of their culture, community, and society through a phenomenographic approach; (2) conduct a design-based research study on the development of culturally-contextualized theory of learning and curriculum modules that will be piloted in several schools in the Navajo Nation; and (3) create and pilot tools to evaluate Navajo students’ experience of engineering design. The primary research questions are: (RQ1) What are the ways in which Navajo students and Navajo professionals experience, understand, and apply engineering design in the context of their culture, community, and society? and (RQ2) How do culturally-contextualized curricula affect the experience and understanding of engineering design, sense of cultural identity, and cultural attitudes of Navajo students?