Engineers and the Metrics of Progress

为了理解工程师与国家认同之间的关系，pi研究了工程师之间关于工程教育内容的争论。这样的争论同时涉及到什么应该算作工程知识，以及工程师应该是什么样的人。pi将花18个月的时间收集和分析8个不同国家的工程师和工程知识数据。该项目测试了一个描述性假设，即工程身份的独特模式和工程知识的有价值形式的出现，部分是对国家独特的进步指标的回应。该项目的初步成果是一本关于工程师和进度指标的比较历史人种志。在方法上，该项目依赖于人种学访谈、参与性观察和广泛收集的初级和二级文件，从考古学上描绘了从现在到过去的工程教育，并从历史上衡量了从过去到现在的进步。测绘工程教育包括概述当前工程教育中的争论和改革运动，并记录工程教育中主要结构和重点的出现。绘制进步指标包括探索国家和国家认同的出现和演变，各级教育模式，以及主流的进步形象。​这个项目通过使用职业认同的概念来重新理论化工程，呼吁人们关注工程师和工程知识的国家和跨国重要性。该项目将帮助美国国内外的工程教育政策制定者更好地参与和参与国内和跨国的教育政策审议。在过去的二十年里，几乎世界上每一个产生工程毕业生的国家都在重新思考和重组工程教育的内容，经常实施戏剧性的变化。本项目将开展基础工作，将当前形势的独特性置于历史视角中，记录全球化和主导的当代经济竞争力逻辑如何对不同国家的工程师和工程教育产生不同的影响。考虑到工程师和工程知识的国家差异是理解当代工程教育全球化运动的关键先决条件。

To understand the relationship between engineers and national identity, the PIs examine the debates among engineers over the contents of engineering education. Such debates are simultaneously about what should count as engineering knowledge and who engineers should be as people. The PIs will spend eighteen months collecting and analyzing data on what has counted as engineers and engineering knowledge in eight different countries. The project tests the descriptive hypothesis that distinct patterns of engineering identities and valued forms of engineering knowledge emerged, in part, as responses to nationally distinct metrics of progress. An initial outcome from the project is a book-length, comparative historical ethnography of engineers and the metrics of progress. Methodologically, the project relies on ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and extensive collection of primary and secondary documents to map engineering education archaeologically from the present to the past and metrics of progress historically from the past to the present. Mapping engineering education involves outlining current debates and reform movements in engineering education and documenting the emergence of the principal structures and emphases in engineering education. Mapping metrics of progress involves exploring the emergence and evolution of the nation and national identity, modes of education at all levels, and dominant popular images of progress. A second outcome is expanded research collaboration among Virginia Tech, Colorado School of Mines, and Taiwan's National Tsing Hua. This project calls attention to the national and transnational importance of engineers and engineering knowledge by using the concept of professional identity to re-theorize engineering. The project will help policymakers in engineering education both inside and outside the U.S. better engage and participate in national and transnational deliberations over educational policies. Over the past two decades, virtually every country in the world that produces engineering graduates has been rethinking and restructuring the contents of engineering education, often implementing dramatic changes. This project will conduct the spadework that will put the uniqueness of the current situation in historical perspective, documenting how globalization and the dominant contemporary logic of economic competitiveness have different implications for engineers and engineering education in different countries. Accounting for national differences in engineers and engineering knowledge is a key prerequisite to understanding contemporary movements to globalize engineering education.