Retooling Engineering for Social Justice: The use of explicit models for analytical thinking, critical reflection, and peer-review in Swedish engineering education

Abstract

This paper engages with social justice in engineering education based on pedagogical tools aimed at improving analytical reading, writing and critical reflection in course activities. The authors conceptualizes analytical thinking, critical reflection, and web-based peer review as tools for transformation of student learning, and apply these tools as instructions to engineering students studying city planning in Stockholm, Sweden. Students were asked to use the tools to critically analyze the role of national identities, social vis-à-vis technological engineering, and what politics have shaped Swedish society. In studying these aspects of city planning, the authors argue for a shift in attention toward the practices of engineers’ work around issues of social justice, an argument reinforced by the results of textual analysis of student essay reflections on social justice in city planning. The results are a wide range of themes of critical reflection made by students arising from course activities. These included balancing social and environmental justice, like suburban segregation, planning ideals and, in some cases, challenges for the planning profession. We argue that these are valuable lessons for engineers, which can be achieved by combining practical experiences of planning practices with tools for advancing critical and analytical skills of engineering students. By analyzing engineering students’ views on solutions and challenges of addressing social justice in practice, we can improve our understanding of the engineering skills required to work with social justice. In this way, the study complements discussion and critiques of the relationships between society and engineering outlined in the rhetoric of engineering grand challenges, and contributes by discussing new roles for engineers in facing day-to-day challenges working with social justice.