Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in U. S. Engineering

2010-06-01 Technology & Engineering

Author : Amy E. Slaton
Release : 2010-06-01
Genre : Technology & Engineering
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 639/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in U. S. Engineering by : Amy E. Slaton

Download or read book Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in U. S. Engineering written by Amy E. Slaton. This book was released on 2010-06-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the educational and professional advances made by minorities in recent decades, African Americans remain woefully underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering. Even at its peak, in 2000, African American representation in engineering careers reached only 5.7 percent, while blacks made up 15 percent of the U.S. population. Some forty-five years after the Civil Rights Act sought to eliminate racial differences in education and employment, what do we make of an occupational pattern that perpetually follows the lines of race? Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in U.S. Engineering pursues this question and its ramifications through historical case studies. Focusing on engineering programs in three settings--in Maryland, Illinois, and Texas, from the 1940s through the 1990s--Amy E. Slaton examines efforts to expand black opportunities in engineering as well as obstacles to those reforms. Her study reveals aspects of admissions criteria and curricular emphases that work against proportionate black involvement in many engineering programs. Slaton exposes the negative impact of conservative ideologies in engineering, and of specific institutional processes--ideas and practices that are as limiting for the field of engineering as they are for the goal of greater racial parity in the profession.

Engineers for Change

2012-10-19 History

Author : Matthew H. Wisnioski
Release : 2012-10-19
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 268/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Engineers for Change by : Matthew H. Wisnioski

Download or read book Engineers for Change written by Matthew H. Wisnioski. This book was released on 2012-10-19. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of conflicts within engineering in the 1960s that helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history. In the late 1960s an eclectic group of engineers joined the antiwar and civil rights activists of the time in agitating for change. The engineers were fighting to remake their profession, challenging their fellow engineers to embrace a more humane vision of technology. In Engineers for Change, Matthew Wisnioski offers an account of this conflict within engineering, linking it to deep-seated assumptions about technology and American life. The postwar period in America saw a near-utopian belief in technology's beneficence. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, society—influenced by the antitechnology writings of such thinkers as Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford—began to view technology in a more negative light. Engineers themselves were seen as conformist organization men propping up the military-industrial complex. A dissident minority of engineers offered critiques of their profession that appropriated concepts from technology's critics. These dissidents were criticized in turn by conservatives who regarded them as countercultural Luddites. And yet, as Wisnioski shows, the radical minority spurred the professional elite to promote a new understanding of technology as a rapidly accelerating force that our institutions are ill-equipped to handle. The negative consequences of technology spring from its very nature—and not from engineering's failures. “Sociotechnologists” were recruited to help society adjust to its technology. Wisnioski argues that in responding to the challenges posed by critics within their profession, engineers in the 1960s helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history.

Engineering and Social Justice

2012-01-15 Education

Author : Caroline Baillie
Release : 2012-01-15
Genre : Education
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 57X/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Engineering and Social Justice by : Caroline Baillie

Download or read book Engineering and Social Justice written by Caroline Baillie. This book was released on 2012-01-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is aimed at engineering academics worldwide, who are attempting to bring social justice into their work and practice, or who would like to but don't know where to start. This is the first book dedicated specifically to University professionals on Engineering and Social Justice, an emerging and exciting area of research and practice. An international team of multidisciplinary authors share their insights and invite and inspire us to reformulate the way we work. Each chapter is based on research and yet presents the outcomes of scholarly studies in a user oriented style. We look at all three areas of an engineering academic's professional role: research, teaching and community engagement. Some of our team have created classes which help students think through their role as engineering practitioners in society. Others are focusing their research on outcomes that are socially just and for client groups who are marginalized and powerless. Yet others are consciously engaging local community groups and exploring ways in which the University might 'serve' communities at home and globally from a post-development perspective. We are additionally concerned with the student cohort and who has access to engineering studies. We take a broad social and ecological justice perspective to critique existing and explore alternative practices. This book is a handbook for any engineering academic, who wishes to develop engineering graduates as well as technologies and practices that are non-oppressive, equitable and engaged. It is also an essential reader for anyone studying in this interdisciplinary juncture of social science and engineering. Scholars using a critical theoretical lens on engineering practice and education, from Science and Technology Studies, History and Philosophy of Engineering, Engineering and Science Education will find this text invaluable.

Changing the Face of Engineering

2015-12-15 Education

Author : John Brooks Slaughter
Release : 2015-12-15
Genre : Education
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 150/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Changing the Face of Engineering by : John Brooks Slaughter

Download or read book Changing the Face of Engineering written by John Brooks Slaughter. This book was released on 2015-12-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can academic institutions, corporations, and policymakers foster African American participation and advancement in engineering? For much of America’s history, African Americans were discouraged or aggressively prevented from becoming scientists and engineers. Those who did enter STEM fields found that their inventions and discoveries were often neither recognized nor valued. Even today, particularly in the field of engineering, the participation of African American men and women is shockingly low, and some evidence indicates that the situation might be getting worse. In Changing the Face of Engineering, twenty-four eminent scholars address the underrepresentation of African Americans in engineering from a wide variety of disciplinary and professional perspectives while proposing workable classroom solutions and public policy initiatives. They combine robust statistical analyses with personal narratives of African American engineers and STEM instructors who, by taking evidenced-based approaches, have found success in graduating African American engineers. Changing the Face of Engineering argues that the continued underrepresentation of African Americans in engineering impairs the ability of the United States to compete successfully in the global marketplace. This volume will be of interest to STEM scholars and students, as well as policymakers, corporations, and higher education institutions.

Engineering Education for Social Justice

2013-05-24 Philosophy

Author : Juan Lucena
Release : 2013-05-24
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 506/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Engineering Education for Social Justice by : Juan Lucena

Download or read book Engineering Education for Social Justice written by Juan Lucena. This book was released on 2013-05-24. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hoping to help transform engineering into a more socially just field of practice, this book offers various perspectives and strategies while highlighting key concepts and themes that help readers understand the complex relationship between engineering education and social justice. This volume tackles topics and scopes ranging from the role of Buddhism in socially just engineering to the blinding effects of ideologies in engineering to case studies on the implications of engineered systems for social justice. This book aims to serve as a framework for interventions or strategies to make social justice more visible in engineering education and enhance scholarship in the emerging field of Engineering and Social Justice (ESJ). This creates a ‘toolbox’ for engineering educators and students to make social justice a central theme in engineering education.

Popular eBooks

Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in U. S. Engineering

Engineers for Change

Engineering and Social Justice

Changing the Face of Engineering

Engineering Education for Social Justice

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