Equity in Collaboration: My Ideas Matter, Too! K-12 Students' Negotiation of Social Status in Collaborative Engineering Teams (Fundamental Research).

Within pre-college (K-12) engineering education, the curriculum design integrates students working with partners or teams on projects as standard practice in the curriculum design. However, with a need to increase participation in engineering and other STEM career pathways, introducing engineering in pre-college settings has become a central avenue for access to STEM career pathways for many students. Pre-college learning experiences are opportunities to develop students' interests further and continually transform their identities. This period of development highlights the importance of introducing pre-college engineering activities to students that are engaging for all students and consider the needs of students from underserved, underperforming, or underrepresented populations in STEM fields. In pre-college settings, positive collaborative experiences situated with engineering concepts could promote interests and continued engagement with pathways to engineering careers. However, ineffective collaborative experiences may exacerbate equity issues (e.g., underrepresentation) in engineering classrooms which may deter any future participation with the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]