Abstract
The need for engineering students to develop nuanced understandings of the cultural, social, and political contexts of socio-technical systems has never been more obvious to engineering leaders and decision-makers. Yet, engineers often have obtuse definitions of their responsibilities to the public and seem to engage with the socio-cultural contexts and consequences of their work only in times controversy. A central underlying factor in this disengagement from considerations of social justice and equality is the ideology of depoliticization, the belief that engineering is a purely “technical” space in which engineers design technological objects and systems stripped of political and cultural concerns. In this chapter, we ask, what role does the culture and structure of engineering education play in promoting depoliticization? After elaborating the ideology of depoliticization, we argue that the culture of engineering pedagogy and the traditional curricular structure of engineering education (both its accreditation process and its intra-program curricula) help support and promote an ideology of depoliticization in engineering and train students to adopt this ideology within their own understandings of their professional roles and responsibilities. We end by discussing the consequences of having depoliticization embedded in the culture and structure of engineering education, and suggest possible policy solutions to re-politicize engineering education.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Abbott, A. (1988). The systems of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Barry, B. E., & Ohland, M. W. (2012). ABET criterion 3.f: How much curriculum content is enough? Science and Engineering Ethics, 18, 369–392.
Becker, H., Geer, B., Hughes, E. C., & Strauss, A. L. (1961). Boys in white: Student culture in medical school. New Brunswick: Transactional Books.
Bereano, P. L. (1976). Technology as a social and political phenomenon. New York: Wiley.
Bijker, W. E., & Law, J. (1992). Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bucciarelli, L. L. (1994). Designing engineers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Catalano, G. D. (2011). Tragedy in the Gulf: A call for a new engineering ethic. New York: Morgan and Claypool.
Cech, E. A. (2012). Great problems of grand challenges: Problematizing engineering’s understandings of its role in society [Grand Challenges, National Academy of Engineering, participation, reflexivity, technical-social division]. International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, 1(2), 85–94.
Cech, E. A. (2013). The (Mis)framing of social justice: Why meritocracy and depoliticization hinder engineers’ ability to think about social injustices. In J. Lucena (Ed.), Engineering education for social justice: Critical explorations and opportunities (pp. 67–84). New York: Springer.
Cech, E. A. (2014). Culture of disengagement in engineering education? Science, Technology & Human Values, 39(1), 34–63.
Cech, E. A., & Waidzunas, T. (2011). Navigating the heteronormativity of engineering: The experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual students. Engineering Studies, 3(1), 1–24.
Costello, C. Y. (2005). Professional identity crisis: Race, class, gender and success at professional schools. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Culver, R., McGrann, R., & Lehmann, G. (2005). Preparing students for ABET a-k. Paper presented at the ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Indianapolis.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. (1983). “The iron cage revisited” institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160.
Dryburgh, H. (1999). Work hard, play hard: Women and professionalization in engineering-adapting to the culture. Gender and Society, 13(5), 664–682.
Faulkner, W. (2000). Dualism, hierarchies and gender in engineering. Social Studies of Science, 30(5), 759–792.
Faulkner, W. (2007). ‘Nuts and bolts and people’: Gender-troubled engineering identities. Social Studies of Science, 37(3).
Florman, S. C. (1994). The existential pleasures of engineering (Vol. 2). New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.
Hacker, S. L. (1981). The culture of engineering: Woman, workplace and machine. Women’s Studies International Quarterly, 4, 341–353.
Ibarra, H. (1999). Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 764–791. doi:10.2307/2667055.
Jordan, J. M. (1994). Machine-age ideology: Social engineering and American liberalism, 1911–1939. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1999). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lattuca, L. R., Terenzini, P. T., & Volkwein, J. F. (2006). Engineering change: A study of the impact of EC2000. Baltimore: ABET.
Layton, E. T., Jr. (1971). The revolt of the engineers: Social responsibility and the American engineering profession. Cleveland: Western Reserve Press.
National Academy of Engineering. (2004). The engineer of 2020: Visions of engineering in the new century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Nye, D. E. (2006). Technology matters: Questions to live with. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Petroski, H. (1994). Design paradigms: Case histories of error and judgement in engineering. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Riley, D. M. (2011). Engineering thermodynamics and 21st century energy problems: A textbook companion for student engagement. San Rafael: Morgan and Claypool.
Rolston, J., & Cox, E. (2015). Engineering for the real world: Diversity, innovation and hands-on learning. In S. H. Christensen, C. Didier, A. Jamison, M. Meganck, C. Mitcham, & B. Newberry (Eds.), International perspectives on engineering education: Engineering education and practice in context (Vol. I.). Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Schleef, D. J. (2006). Managing elites: Professional socialization in law and business schools. New York: Rowan and Littlefield.
Slaton, A. E. (2011). Note to self: Save humanity (A social and culture history of the “grand challenges”). Vancouver: American Society for Engineering Education.
Slaton, A. E. (2015). Meritocracy, technocracy, democracy: Understandings of racial and gender equity in American engineering education. In S. H. Christensen, C. Didier, A. Jamison, M. Meganck, C. Mitcham, & B. Newberry (Eds.), International perspectives on engineering education: Engineering education and practice in context (Vol. I). Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Trice, H. M. (1993). Occupational subcultures in the workplace. Ithica: ILR Press.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2006). Materializing morality: Design ethics and technological mediation. Science, Technology & Human Values, 31(3), 361–380. doi:10.1177/0162243905285847.
Zimmerman, A. D. (1995). Toward a more democratic ethic of technological governance. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 20(1), 86–107.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cech, E.A., Sherick, H.M. (2015). Depoliticization and the Structure of Engineering Education. In: Christensen, S., Didier, C., Jamison, A., Meganck, M., Mitcham, C., Newberry, B. (eds) International Perspectives on Engineering Education. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16169-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16169-3_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16168-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16169-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)