Engineering Identities, Epistemologies and Values

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice.

Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts.

Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice.

Steen Hyldgaard Christensen M.A. in Scandinavian Language and Literature and the History of Ideas, Aarhus University. Ph.D. in Educational Studies, Aalborg University. Senior lecturer at Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Herning, Denmark, until 2014. From 2014, adjunct associate professor at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has initiated six big international inter- and metadisciplinary research projects on engineering including PROCEED and coordinated fi ve of them. He has acted in roles of editor-in-chief and coauthor of four books: Profession, Culture, and Communication: An Interdisciplinary Challenge to Business and Engineering (Institute of Business Administration and Technology Press 2003); Philosophy in Engineering (Academica 2007); Engineering in Context (Academica 2009); and Engineering, Development and Philosophy: American, Chinese, and European Perspectives (Springer 2012). Besides, he has coauthored A Hybrid Imagination: Science and Technology in Cultural Perspective (Morgan & Claypool Publishers 2011) together with Andrew Jamison and Lars Botin. In addition, he has published a number of articles on engineering epistemology, culture, and education. Current research interest includes academic drift in engineering education and structural dynamics in higher education.

Christelle Didier B.S. in Electrochemistry Engineering, M.A. in Education, Ph.D. in Sociology from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. From 1993 to 2013, Assistant Professor, Lille University, France, Ethics Department. Assistant Professor, Charles de Gaulle University of Lille, Education Department. Member of CIREL (EA 4354). Coauthor of Ethique industrielle (DeBoeck, Brussels, 1998) and author of Penser l’éthique des ingénieurs (PUF, Paris 2008) and Les ingénieurs et l’éthique: Pour un regard sociologique (Hermes 2008). She has published many articles on ethics and social responsibility in the engineering profession and education and on the engineering profession’s values (from interviews and extensive surveys). Her research areas are engineering ethics and values, including historical, cultural, and gender perspective, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, social responsibility.

Andrew Jamison B.A. in History and Science from Harvard University, Ph.D. in Theory of Science from University of Gothenburg (Göteborg). Docent in Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg. Professor of Technology, Environment, and Society at Aalborg University. Coordinator of Program of Research on Opportunities and Challenges in Engineering Education in Denmark (PROCEED), 2010–2013, and author, most recently, of The Making of Green Knowledge: Environmental Politics and Cultural Transformation (Cambridge 2001), Hubris and Hybrids: A Cultural History of Technology and Science , with Mikael Hård (Routledge 2005), A Hybrid Imagination: Science and Technology in Cultural Perspective (Morgan & Claypool Publishers 2011) together with Steen Hyldgaard Christensen and Lars Botin, and The Making of Green Engineers: Sustainable Development and the Hybrid Imagination (Morgan and Claypool 2013).

Martin Meganck M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Ghent University, Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, and M.A. Moral Theology both from KU Leuven. Lecturer in Philosophy and Ethics in the Faculty of Engineering Technology, researcher at the Center for Science, Technology, and Ethics, and the Theological Faculty of the KU Leuven. Teaching areas include Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, and Professional and Business Ethics. He was coauthor and coeditor of Philosophy in Engineering (Academica 2007) and Engineering in Context (Academica 2009).

Carl Mitcham B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from University of Colorado, Boulder. Ph.D. in Philosophy from Fordham University. Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology, Renmin University of China, Beijing; Liberal Arts and International Studies, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado. Scholarly contributions have been directed toward the philosophy and ethics of science, technology, engineering, and medicine and to science, technology, and society (STS) studies. Teaching areas include ethics, STS, and science and technology policy.

Byron Newberry B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Alabama. M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics, both from Iowa State University. Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Baylor University. Baylor Fellow for teaching. Professional Engineer (PE) Texas, USA. Research interests include engineering design, engineering ethics, and philosophy of engineering and technology. Aircraft structural engineering consultant. Executive board member, National Institute for Engineering Ethics. Editor of the Springer Philosophy of Engineering and Technology book series.