San Antonio, Texas
June 10, 2012
June 10, 2012
June 13, 2012
2153-5965
Liberal Education/Engineering & Society
16
25.1463.1 - 25.1463.16
10.18260/1-2--22220
https://peer.asee.org/22220
470
Jens Kabo works as a researcher at the Division of Engineering Education Research at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Xiaofeng Tang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Dean Nieusma is Assistant Professor in science and technology studies and Director of the programs in design and innovation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
John Currie is a Senior Fellow at the Australian Centre for Innovation in the Faculty of Engineering & IT, University of Sydney.
Hu Wenlong is a Ph.D. student at Beihang University (BUAA), working in the area of higher education research.
Caroline Baillie is Chair of Engineering Education at the University of Western Australia. She directs several programs on Engineering Education for Social and Environmental Justice, as well as Engineering Thresholds.
A cross-cultural comparison of engineering education accreditation in Australia, China, Sweden and the United States In this paper we report on a cross-‐cultural comparison of central accreditation requirements for engineering programs (such as ABET in the US) in four different countries, namely Australia, China, Sweden and the United States, in relation to how social justice issues appear (or not appear). Our emphasis is on comparison and contrast as opposed to detailed review of each context. First, we present short summaries of how engineering education accreditation is structured and controlled in each context (i.e., Who are the key players?; e.g., ABET is a private, not-‐for-‐profit organization, whereas its equivalent in Sweden is managed by the state). Then, we analyse how the social and the technical are represented in the central accreditation documentation for each context (e.g., how is the social and the technical described, in vague or specific statements, in broad or narrow scope, etc.; how much of the accreditation requirements is dedicated to the social versus the technical). Finally, to gain broader understanding and insight we compare and contrast our four studies. Understanding how the social and the technical are represented is a first important step toward understanding possible barriers and opportunities for teaching social justice in engineering in terms of accreditation. Overall, there appear to be few previous publications in the area of cross-‐cultural comparisons of engineering education accreditation. The major exception being Lucena and co-‐authors’ 2008 JEE paper “Competencies Beyond Countries: The Re-‐Organization of Engineering Education in the United States, Europe, and Latin America”. With our interest in the representation of the social and the technical in engineering accreditation our focus is quite different from the one taken in that paper and our study helps to expand and fill this somewhat underexplored niche of engineering education research.
Kabo, J., & Tang, X., & Nieusma, D., & Currie, J., & Wenlong, H., & Baillie, C. (2012, June), Visions of Social Competence: Comparing Engineering Education Accreditation in Australia, China, Sweden, and the United States Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--22220
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015