Participatory pedagogies enhance engineering education for sustainability

ABSTRACT

Using a survey, interviews, and reflections by the teaching-research team, we explored the effects of almost a decade of experimentation, inspired by Freire’s pedagogy for liberation, which applied participatory action research in engineering courses and in cities to develop professionals who are more committed to sustainability and more able to interact with ‘ordinary’ citizens in all their diversity. We found that using a planning-based participatory action research methodology, in the living laboratories of real city neighbourhoods, increased engineers’ appreciation of citizenship, sustainability and equity. While this experience does not pretend to universality, it does suggest ways that structuring action research into course activities and critical reflection can improve students’ understanding of sustainability and related social justice challenges. Moreover, this innovative pedagogy proved robust during two years of extreme disruption due to social protest and strict COVID-19 quarantines in Chile. The findings may benefit researchers and teachers grappling with similar challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• UN sustainable development goals
• participatory action research
• service learning
• innovation in engineering education
• transport justice
• ethics
• sustainability

KEY SEARCH TERMS:

• Sustainability education
• Freire
• participatory action research
• service learning
• engineering education

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the BRT Center for Excellence and the Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable (CEDEUS) at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with funding from Conicyt, FONDAP No. 15110020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable (CEDEUS) [FONDAP No. 15110020].