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Integrating Technical and Social Issues in Engineering Education: A Justice Oriented Mindset

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Equity, Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY) Technical Session 8

Tagged Divisions

Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

19

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43783

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43783

Download Count

129

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Paper Authors

biography

Anne M. McAlister The State University of New York, Buffalo Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4155-251X

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Anne M. McAlister is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on engineering identity, social justice, and equity with the goal of broadening ideas about who engineers are and what they do in order to empower students to tackle the big issues in today’s world through engineering. Dr. McAlister has a PhD in Education and a MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. She has a BS in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University .

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biography

Sarah Catherine Lilly California State University, Channel Islands

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Sarah Lilly is a PhD student in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education at the University of Virginia. She holds a B.S. in Mathematics and English and an M.A.Ed. in Secondary Education from The College of William and Mary. Her rese

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Abstract

The problem-solving skills of engineers are necessary to address modern, global, sociotechnical issues (e.g., accessibility, climate change, health/pandemic, racism). Undergraduate engineering students, particularly women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities, are often motivated by these sociotechnical challenges to pursue engineering. However, technical learning and social issues are frequently separated in current forms of undergraduate engineering education, and engineering students may learn to devalue social aspects of engineering as a result. Integrating social issues, such as issues of equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice, into an engineering education may privilege the experiential knowledge of a wider set of students and empower a new generation of engineers to address pressing sociotechnical issues. In this study, we synthesize examples of such integration from prior literature through a narrative literature review, beginning with seminal works and using a snowballing method to include other articles. We consider themes across the prior literature that address our research questions: How might social and technical aspects of engineering be effectively integrated in undergraduate engineering education and what are the benefits of such integration? Our synthesis may support engineering educators and engineering institutions to better integrate sociotechnical issues into their coursework. Particularly, our work provides insight into methods for addressing the misconception that engineering is purely technical. The larger goal of the work is to empower more students to respond to global, sociotechnical issues through engineering and to increase representation and inclusion in engineering.

McAlister, A. M., & Lilly, S. C. (2023, June), Integrating Technical and Social Issues in Engineering Education: A Justice Oriented Mindset Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43783

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