Abstract
I have just finished teaching a semester of Engineering Cultures with Grace Hood, Jongmin Lee, and Nicholas Sakellariou, graduate students in VirginiaTech’s Science andTechnology Studies (STS) Program. The main purpose of this large, 150-student course is to help engineering students become critically aware of their own knowledge and commitments and analyze them in relation to those of others, including both engineers and non-engineers.1 Its main pedagogical device is a voyage across space and time. Class modules in this version examined the emergence of engineers across the territories of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Role-playing exercises challenged students to describe and perform perspectives other than their own. Analyses of recent reform movements in the United States sought to help students reflect on what led them into engineering, what is currently at stake in engineering curricula, and who has stakes in the contents of engineering knowledge.
“[A]s I began to mature, both emotionally and academically, I suddenly felt confined by the requirements of my [engineering] curriculum.”
Author, Essay for scholarship competition, 1973.
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Downey, G.L. (2011). Location, Knowledge, and Desire: From Two Conservatisms to Engineering Cultures and Countries. In: What is Global Engineering Education For?. Synthesis Lectures on Global Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02125-1_7
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