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Abstract
Engineering education and engineering studies research has clearly articulated a need for educational reform to help new engineers understand social dimensions of their work and act as change agents. At the same time, while some practicing engineers may be committed to systemic change and service to society, they must also contend with work responsibilities which serve corporate interests and constrain change. To highlight tensions between calls for socially just engineering education and the corporate contexts constraining engineering work, this study examines the transition to work for one early career engineer. Drawing on the concept of figured worlds, we examine the under-explored relationship between the agency of individual engineers and the structure of engineering workplace culture. This structure-agency approach guides our narrative analysis of the participant’s early work experience based on five interviews across her first two years of work. Our findings illustrate the need to extend representations of both educational preparation and engineering work by unpacking the complex identity negotiations that individuals experience. In doing so, we also demonstrate the value of both the structure-agency framework and narrative methods for identity researchers in both engineering studies and engineering education.
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by NSF under Grant Number 1607811. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors also wish to acknowledge project PI’s Julie Ford, Susannah Howe and Daria Kotys-Schwartz as well as Nicholas Alvarez, Tahsin Chowdhury, Daniel Knight, Cristian Hernandez, Francesca Giardine, Annie Kary, Robin Ott, and Jessica Deters, for their contributions to research design, data collection, and data management.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 e.g., Paretti and McNair, “Analyzing Identities in Engineering Work”; and Buch, “Ideas of Holistic Engineering.”
2 Lutz and Paretti, “Exploring Social and Cultural Dimensions.”
3 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds.
4 Faulkner, “Dualisms, Hierarchies and Gender in Engineering”; Lagesen and Sorensen, “Walking the Line?”; Cech, “The (Mis)Framing of Social Justice”.
5 Smith, “Technological Determinism in American Culture,” 1–17.
6 Leydens and Lucena, “Social Justice is Often Invisible,” 5–19; Wilson-Lopez et al, “Latina/o Funds of Knowledge,” 278–302; Nieusma and Riley, “Designs on Development,” 55–8; Downey, “Normative Contents of Engineering.”
7 Trevelyan and Williams. “Value Creation in the Engineering Enterprise.”
8 Such critiques date back to the 1918 Mann Report and continue up through ASME’s Vision 2030 and beyond.
9 Jonassen, “Engineers as Problem Solvers”; Bucciarelli, “Design Knowing and Learning”; Stevens, Johri and O'Connor, “Professional Engineering Work”; Trevelyan, “Reconstructing Engineering from Practice”; Anderson et al., “Understanding Engineering Work and Identity.”
10 We use the term ‘holistic’ for simplicity to capture this spectrum.
11 e.g, Stevens, Johri and O'Connor, “Professional Engineering Work”; Cech, “The (Mis)Framing of Social Justice”; Duderstadt, “Engineering for a Changing World,” 17–35; Cech, “The (Mis)Framing of Social Justice.”
12 Riley, Social Justice and Engineering, 116–20; and Walther, Miller, and Sochacka, “A Model of Empathy,” 133–41; Walther, Miller, and Sochacka, “A Model of Empathy,” 128–33; Leydens and Lucena, “Social Justice is Often Invisible,” 49–58.
13 National Academy of Engineering, Educating the Engineer of 2020, 53–7; Flumerfelt et al., Lean Engineering Education, 31–57.
14 Pinch and Bijker, “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts,” 30–47; and Lucena, Schneider, and Leydens, Engineering and Sustainable Community Development, 103–11.
15 Date and Chandrasekharan, “Beyond Efficiency: Engineering for Sustainability,” 12–37.
16 Riley, Social Justice and Engineering, 62–71; Riley, “Ends, Means, Ethics Grand(iose) Challenges,” 1–11; and Lucena, Schneider, and Leydens, Engineering and Sustainable Community Development, 36–43.
17 Noble, America by Design, 46–7; and Wisnioski, “Servants of The System,” 26–46.
18 Paretti and McNair, “Analyzing Identities in Engineering Work,” 55–78; Buch, “Ideas of Holistic Engineering,” 146–60.
19 Spring. American Education, 5–25.
20 Noble, America by Design, 168.
21 Kitcher, “Education, Democracy, and Capitalism,” 359–79; and Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 99–108.
22 Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 85–6.
23 Johri & Olds, “Situative Frameworks”; Wenger, Communities of Practice.
24 e.g. Groen and McNair, “Developing a Grounded Theory”; Secules, et al., “Supporting Narrative Agency of Students”.
25 e.g. Anderson et al., “Understanding Engineering Work and Identity”; and Hatmaker, “Professional Identity Construction”.
26 Faulkner, “Dualisms, Hierarchies and Gender in Engineering”; Buch, “Ideas of Holistic Engineering”; Paretti and McNair, “Analyzing Identities in Engineering Work”.
27 e.g. Winters and Matusovich, “Goals and Actions of Early Graduates”; and Brunhaver et al., “Understanding Engineering Students’ Pathways”.
28 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, 1998.
29 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, 169–84.
30 Matusov and Duyke, “Internally Persuasive Discourse in Education,” 1–10.
31 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, 42.
32 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, 53.
33 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, 41.
34 Lutz and Paretti, “Exploring the Social and Cultural Dimensions.”
35 Beddoes’ “Examining Privilege in Engineering.”
36 Jesiek et al., “Performing at the Boundaries.”
37 Phinney, “Identity Formation Across Cultures,” 28.
38 Daiute and Lightfoot, “Theory and Craft in Narrative Inquiry,” 4.
39 Kellam, Gerow, and Walther, “Narrative Analysis in Engineering Education Research,” 1–11.
40 Foor, Walden and Trytten, “I Wish I Belonged”; Marshall and Case, “Rethinking ‘Disadvantage’ in Higher Education.”
41 Lyons and Labosky, “Why Narrative Inquiry or Exemplars,” 11–14; Slaton and Pawley, “Power and Politics.”
42 Ford, et al., “Transitioning from Capstone Design Courses,” 1–7.
43 Paretti et al., “Research Methods for C2W”.
44 Marshall and Case, “Rethinking ‘Disadvantage’ in Higher Education.”
45 For details on selection process and larger narrative project, see Gewirtz, “Twelve Tales of Engineering.”
46 We adopt a pseudonym cautiously because pseudonyms can invoke race, class, and other demographic markers; however, for readability, we choose to refer to the participant by name in this article.
47 Gewirtz, “Twelve Tales of Engineering.”
48 Howe et al., “Women’s Transition to Engineering.”
49 Ford et al., “Transitioning from Capstone to Workplaces”; Paretti et al., “Leveraging capstone design experiences.”
50 For full details on interview protocols, see Paretti et al., “Research Methods for C2W.”
51 Elliott, “Listening to People’s Stories,” 1–40; Riessman, “Narrative Analysis,” 21–31.
52 Walther, Sochacka, and Kellam, “Quality in Engineering Education Research,” 11–30; Secules et al., “Supporting Narrative Agency of Students,” 4–11.
53 Kellam, Gerow, and Walther, “Narrative Analysis in Engineering Education Research,” 2015, pp. 1–11.
54 Jesiek, Buswell and Nittala, “Performing at the Boundaries.”
55 Sochacka, Walther, and Pawley, “Ethical Validation,” 371–6.
56 Kellam, Gerow, and Walther, “Narrative Analysis in Engineering Education Research,” 1–11.
57 Walther, Sochacka, and Kellam, “Quality in Engineering Education Research,” 11–30.
58 Saldaña, Longitudinal Qualitative Research, 157–71.
59 Lempert, “Asking Questions of the Data,” 247–58.
60 Kellam, Gerow and Walther, “Narrative Analysis in Engineering Education Research,” 1–11.
61 Fictionalized to maintain participant anonymity; Catherine did become the go-to person for one specific type of building project, but not skyscrapers per se.
62 In the 6- and 12-month interviews, participants were asked about the results of any performance reviews. While those results are self-reported, the rapport between interview and participant, evident in the ways participants routinely talked about challenges, failures, and insecurities, suggest that the self-reports accurately capture participants’ perceptions of those reviews.
63 Lutz and Paretti, “Exploring Social and Cultural Dimensions.”
64 Jesiek, Buswell and Nittala, “Performing at the Boundaries.”
65 Howe et al., “Women’s Transition to Engineering,” 20.
66 Buch, “Ideas of Holistic Engineering.”
67 Paretti and McNair, “Analyzing Identities in Engineering Work.”
68 Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, 16–17.
69 Giroux, “Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education.”
70 Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 72–86.
71 Jaffe, Work Won't Love You Back.
72 Eagleton-Pierce, “Responsibility,” 160.
73 Gewirtz, Twelve Tales.
74 Barone, “Case of Critical Storytelling,” 1–5.
75 Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 72–86.
76 Case, “Educational Reform and Social Change,” 1–11.
77 Jasanoff, “Technologies of Humility.”
78 York, “Experiments in Critical Participation,” 76–82.