Social Justice and the Engineering Profession: Challenging Engineering Education to Move Beyond the Technical

Abstract

This study investigates faculty and students’ perception of the significance of social justice in the engineering education program in an Arab Gulf nation. In light of the expanding ethical education of engineers stated in the Accreditation Board on Engineering and Technology, the study collected interview data from 9 faculty and 20 students from different departments of a large engineering college in the Middle East. The interviews center on participants’ understanding of social justice and related issues that engineers face and the importance and integration of social justice within the engineering program. Findings suggest that there is a lack of teaching about social justice with a direction toward a technical trivialized education. However, we argue that all of these approaches lead to and open possibilities for a new language and discourse in engineering education, widening the ethical education of engineers.