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31 D Chapter 2 d An ethnogrAphic study of sociAl justice themes in engineering educAtion George D. Ricco and Matthew W. Ohland introduction Theodore von Karman situates the engineering discipline,saying,“Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been.”This is a widely accepted characterization of the engineering discipline—the pursuit of reinventing the world for the benefit of humanity. This view of engineering embodies two assumptions—first, that the current state of things is not ideal, and second, that the work of engineering results in improving the current state of things. For instance, the Engineer of 2000 is followed by the Engineer of 2020. What I endeavored over the period of nearly one and one-half years was to discover, probe, and investigate engineers within and without the classroom environment of a firstyear engineering course at a major research institution in the Midwest.I did not begin with numerous hypotheses to this fieldwork,but instead relied upon the Chicago-style tradition of semi-journalistic ethnography (Anderson, 2003; Burgess, 1984; Park, 1921). In essence, my approach to student observations takes much from fundamental and accepted guidelines of observation, (Burgess, 1984; Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1996; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2004; Strauss, 1987), including those with special instructions on undergraduate work (Spradley, 1979, 1980), with the caveat that I focus as much as possible on the relaying of the story (Kent, 1993) and less upon the semantic construction of hierarchic sets to build a primary or even final ethnosphere. In addition to presenting the story that emerged by observing students, I also devote time to encouraging the reader to engage in ethnography—not just as a research tool, but as a tool for social change—a mechanism for promoting social justice. Since this is a book chapter, my intentions for this work do not entirely fit the journal model.I will not only provide example ethnography from first principles and seed synergistic dialogue, but I will also encourage my peers to take up the mantle of field observation. In other words, if you, the reader, strive with me to observe students“in the wild,”I will endeavor to provide signposts to guide your journey. I do not intend to detail the complete history of social justice in the Western world, nor will I pretend that ethnography contains An ethnogrAphic study of sociAl justice themes 32 the panacea for all engineering education issues. Nevertheless, ethnography holds promise to hold a mirror to the institution of engineering education (and education as a whole) to reflect where the aims of the institution are not necessarily consistent with the modes of instruction or evaluation (Lumina Foundation, 2008; Reyna, Reindl, Witham, Stanley, & National GovernorsAssociation,2010; Shuman,2005).The influence of the military industrial complex on the content and process of higher education is diminishing (Bix,2005).The academy’s foray into issues such as sustainability indicate that engineers and engineering education are positioning themselves to be direct and conscious elements of social change. (McDonnell & Elmore, 1987; National Science Foundation, 2008) If engineers are to take upon themselves the mantle of directing social change, then ethnography offers a robust platform via which engineers can become immersed in the world of the beneficiaries of their work, whether the beneficiary is a county municipality in need of a new bridge or a small town in need of a new well. so whAt type of ethnogrAphy is for you? I do not pretend that answering such a question is easy, even for the experienced ethnographer .The malaise with which some of my colleagues view the use of participant observation harkens to the era of ethnographic research where early twentieth century ethnographers critiqued their peers for being layabouts. The scathing critiques of modern ethnographers provided in Geertz’s seminal work (Geertz 1988) accurately characterize much modern ethnography and highlight why some ethnographers avoid the approach: What a proper ethnographer ought to be doing is going out to places,coming back with information about how people live there,and making that information available to the professional community . . . not lounging about in libraries reflecting on literary questions. (p. 1) If you have been put off by ethnography in the past, please give this work a chance. If you have read an ethnographic piece on students that seemed to have little to do with real observations in and out of class, know that while that method has been accepted by some in the community, that it is...

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