Learning to design for social justice in community‐engaged engineering

Abstract

Background: Community-engaged learning initiatives in engineering often struggle to achieve equitable outcomes for community partners because students in such programs often possess a design-for-charity mindset, which is characterized by an uncritical desire to help and the design of solutions that address symptoms of inequity without meaningful community involvement. The paradigm of design-for-justice seeks more equitable outcomes by illuminating positions of power, leveraging community knowledge, facilitating community participation, and altering the structural causes of inequity. Purpose: Little is known about how to support students in developing a design-for-justice mindset. This work investigated how students in one particular community-engaged engineering program with a social justice orientation learned to shift mindsets from charity toward justice.Method: I conducted a case study of a community-engaged engineering learning project during a single academic term using participant observations and semi-structured interviews of eight undergraduates with varying levels of project experience. I performed thematic analysis to identify learning processes students employed in making mindset shifts. Results: Students employed four primary learning processes in developing and deepening a design-for-justice mindset: (1) drawing upon prior experience with inequity; (2) connecting to course content; (3) imitating experienced team members; and (4) empathizing with community members. The three core elements of the program experience-introductory course, laboratory course, and field practicum-each fostered shifts along distinct mindset dimensions. Conclusion: This research offers insights into creating community-engaged engineering learning experiences that may help students shift toward a design-for-justice mindset and has broader implications for how all engineering students might develop socio-technical thinking skills.

The climate is changing. Engineering education needs to change as well

“…Teaching ethics is an ongoing challenge in engineering education that goes beyond climate (National Academy of Engineering, 2017; Reynante, 2022). Ethics in engineering often focuses on microethics, including day‐to‐day decision‐making and client relations.…”

Sustainable Systems Engineering Course Design: Design for Systems and Society

“…Overarching the course, students will work on teams in on a community-engaged design project. Within the development of this project and the learning outcomes, it is essential that we ensure to avoid the design-for-charity approach [21,25]. This approach to community service learning tends to reinforce us-them hierarchies, ignore the structural root cause of societal issues, and neglect local knowledges.…”

“…In his paper, Brandon Reynante [25] outlines the mindshifts required to ensure students take a design-forjustice approach to community engaged design projects (see Table 1). Through critical reflection, actively involving the community and their assets, and addressing the causes of inequity, students will begin the journey on shifting their approach to engineering design.…”

“…Student mindshifts (from left to right) required for design for justice approach to community engaged design projects (adapted from[25]) Working with the University Sustainability Office and their Learning Lab projects, we hope to pair student groups with projects that directly impact sustainability on campus[30]. Within the broader community, our connections with Sustainable Calgary will provide us with opportunities for co-design projects with local Calgary organizations[31].…”

Centering Social Justice in Engineering: A New Course Model for First-year Engineering Education

“…Conventional engineering education emphasizes technology-based attributes such as analytical skill development, technical knowledge, and creative problem solving and leaves little time for students to deeply engage with the social implications of their work [2] [3]. However, in recent years, there has been an increased effort to incorporate social justice into engineering education [4][5][6][7][8][9]. One method has been to encourage students to take social justice-based electives offered by humanities and social science departments, an approach that tends to perpetuate the division between social and technical work [10].…”