Abstract
Having lived the injustices of engineering education as usual, as a first year professor I quickly became concerned with how students related to one another in my engineering thermodynamics class. At the suggestion of a friend, I picked up bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress; this began 10 years of transforming the course using critical, feminist, and engaged pedagogies, a process that required change in content as well as approaches to teaching and learning. I teach technical material alongside its critiques. Students analyze energy flows in engines and refrigeration systems while they ponder how power constructs scientific knowledge, investigate the ethics of energy disasters at Fukushima and the BP Deepwater rig, uncover contributions to thermodynamics outside of Western Europe, and explore North-South conflicts over action on climate change. A subsequent book project hopes to encourage other thermodynamics faculty to teach modules from this course, raising a new set of questions about the potential for transformation and co-optation. Doing this work has revealed both the importance and the limitations of teaching toward social justice in a core engineering course. In this chapter I reflect upon the institutional considerations of course development, from ABET accreditation and federal funding to departmental student and faculty cultures of resistance, revealing both “how I got away with it” and what the costs and benefits have been personally and professionally.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The fugacity is a quantity used to characterize the chemical equilibrium behavior of real gases.
- 2.
Smith continues as a women’s college, while its students hold a range of gender identities including male, female, genderqueer, and more. In that spring semester in 2002, to my knowledge, my students all identified as women, though since that time some of the students in that class as well as in future offerings of the course have expressed non-conforming gender identities.
- 3.
I continue to use Western here rather than the more contemporary North-South language in recognition of the historical setting in which thermodynamic theory and the non-Western technologies I have incorporated in my class were developed.
- 4.
The terminology pedagogies of liberation is one used by Paulo Freire, critiqued by white feminists based on the history of male dominance in liberation movements and the question of who decides who is being liberated. But hooks (1994) defended liberatory language as meaningful for many women of color. There is no one term I know that can encapsulate the pedagogical approaches I use. My intention is to be sensitive to the critiques presented in critical, feminist, decolonizing, queer, and other pedagogies for social justice.
- 5.
That the standard for non-inflationary grading is as high as 40 % “A”s shows exactly how absurd and meaningless grading has become.
References
Al-Hassan, A. Y., & Hill, D. R. (1986). Islamic technology: An illustrated history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berlach, R. G. (2004). Outcomes-based education and the death of knowledge. In Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, VIC, Australia. http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/ber04768.pdf. Accessed 11 Jan 2012.
Bix, A. S. (2002). Equipped for life: Gendered technical training and consumerism in home economics. Technology and Culture, 43(4), 728–754.
Boal, A. (1985). Theatre of the oppressed (C. A. and M.-O. Leal McBride, Trans.). New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Bowen, W., & Bok, D. (1998). The shape of the river: Long term consequences of considering race in university and college admissions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers.
Capper, C. A., & Jamison, M. T. (1993). Outcomes-based education reexamined: From structural functionalism to poststructuralism. Educational Policy, 7(4), 427–446.
Cech, E., & Waidzunas, T. (2009, June 14–17). Engineers who happen to be gay: Lesbian, gay and bisexual students’ experiences in engineering. In ASEE annual conference proceedings, Austin, TX.
Chalouh, M., & Malette, L. (Eds.). (1991). The Montreal massacre. Charlottetown: Ragweed Press.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 139–168.
Downey, G. L., & Lucena, J. C. (1997). Engineering selves: Hiring in to a contested field of education. In G. L. Downey & J. Dumit (Eds.), Cyborgs & citadels: Anthropological interventions in emerging sciences and technologies. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press.
Elkheir, M. (2004, September). The Zeer Pot: A Nigerian invention keeps food fresh without electricity. Science in Africa. http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/september/refrigeration.htm. Accessed 7 June 2011.
Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8, 777–795.
Frank v. Ivy Club, 120 N.J. 73, 576 A.2d 241 (1990).
Gordon, A. (1995). The work of corporate culture: Diversity management. Social Text, 44, 3–30.
Gramsci, A. (2001). Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (Q. Hoare & G. N. Smith, Eds. & Trans.). London: Electric Book Company.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
Humphreys, D., & Davenport, A. (2005). What really matters in college: How students view and value liberal education. Liberal Education, 91(3), 37–43.
James, P., & Thorpe, N. (1994). Ancient inventions. New York: Ballantine Books.
Kabo, J. (2010). Seeing through the lens of social justice: A threshold for engineering. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Chemical Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada. http://hdl.handle.net/1974/s. Accessed 10 Sept 2012.
Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy within/in the postmodern. New York: Routledge.
Luke, C., & Gore, J. (1992). Feminisms and critical pedagogy. New York: Routledge.
Mackay, D. (1979). Finding fugacity feasible. Environmental Science & Technology, 13(10), 1218–1223.
Ng, Y., & Rexford, J. (1993). She’s an engineer? Princeton alumnae reflect. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Patterson, G. (1968). A report on the desirability and feasibility of Princeton entering significantly into the education of women at the undergraduate level. Committee on the Education of Women at Princeton Records, 1955–1969, Princeton University Archives. AC 184 Box 7 Folder 1. http://webspace.princeton.edu/users/mudd/Digitization/AC184/32101070200017.pdf. Accessed 20 Jan 2012.
Pierce, C. M., Carew, J. C., Pierce-Gonzalez, D., & Wills, D. (1977). An experiment in racism: TV commercials. Education and Urban Society, 10(1), 61–87.
Presbyterian Church (USA). (1991). Presbyterians and human sexuality 1991. Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA). http://www.pcusa.org/resource/presbyterians-and-human-sexuality-1991/. Accessed 17 Mar 2012.
Reich, C. (1970). The greening of America. New York: Random House.
Riley, D. (2003). Employing liberative pedagogies in engineering education. Journal of Women and Minorities Science and Engineering, 9(2), 137–158.
Riley, D. (2011). Engineering thermodynamics and 21st century energy problems: A textbook companion for student engagement. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool.
Riley, D. (2012, June 10–13). Aiding and ABETing: The bankruptcy of outcomes-based education as a change strategy. In ASEE annual conference proceedings, San Antonio, TX.
Riley, D. M., & Claris, L. (2006, June 18–21). Power/knowledge: Using Foucault to promote critical understandings of content and pedagogy in engineering thermodynamics. In ASEE annual conference proceedings, Chicago, IL.
Riley, D. M., & Claris, L. (2008). Developing and assessing students’ capacity for lifelong learning. International Journal of Engineering Education, 24(5), 906–916.
Riley, D., & Claris, L. (2009). From persistence to resistance: Pedagogies of liberation for inclusive science and engineering. International Journal of Gender Science and Technology, 1(1), 37–60.
Riley, D., & Sciarra, G. L. (2006, October 28–31). ‘You’re all a bunch of fucking feminists’: Addressing the perceived conflict between gender and professional identities using the Montreal massacre. In Frontiers in Education conference proceedings, San Diego, CA.
Riley, D. M., Claris, L., & Ngambeki, I. (2006a, June 18–21). The ethics blog: Students making connections among ethics, thermodynamics, and life. In ASEE annual conference proceedings, Chicago, IL.
Riley, D., Newby, C. A., & Leal-Almeraz, T. (2006b). Motivating ethnographic methods in risk assessment: Cultural and religious uses of mercury in Latino and Caribbean communities. Risk Analysis, 26(5), 1205–1221.
Riley, D., Pawley, A., & Slaton, A. (2013, forthcoming). Social justice and inclusion: Women and minorities in engineering. In B. Olds & A. Johri (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of engineering education research. New York: Cambridge.
Serron, C., & Silbey, S. (2009). The dialectic between expert knowledge and professional discretion: Accreditation, social control and the limits of instrumental logic. Engineering Studies, 1(2), 102–127.
Seymour, E. (1995). The loss of women from science, mathematics, and engineering undergraduate majors: An explanatory account. Science Education, 79(4), 437–473.
Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation: Dialogues on transforming education. South Hadley: Bergin & Garvey.
Slaton, A. (2012, June 10–13). The tyranny of outcomes: This social origins and impacts of educational standards in American engineering. In ASEE annual conference proceedings, San Antonio, TX.
Stanley, A. (1993). Mothers and daughters of invention: Notes for a revised history of technology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Taylor, F. S. (1949). The alchemists: Founders of modern chemistry. New York: Schuman.
Von Baeyer, H. C. (1999). Warmth disperses and time passes: The history of heat. New York: Modern Library.
Warhaft, Z. (1997). An introduction to thermal-fluid engineering: The engine and the atmosphere. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wong, M. (2003). An evaporative cooler. In B. Hazeltine & C. Bull (Eds.), Field guide to appropriate technology (pp. 257–258). New York: Elsevier Science.
Acknowledgements
I owe a debt of gratitude to the Liberative Pedagogies research group for their contributions to this journey, and to generations of thermodynamics students who engaged the project. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants No. 0448240 and 1037655. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Riley, D.M. (2013). Power. Systems. Engineering. Traveling Lines of Resistance in Academic Institutions. In: Lucena, J. (eds) Engineering Education for Social Justice. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6350-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6350-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6349-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6350-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)