Bildung for Engineering Education and Practice A New Agenda

Using the concept of Bildung as a framework, which in late capitalism/postmodernity may be perceived to include critical knowledge, value consciousness, ethics, and social responsibility (including sustainability), this project aims to investigate the underlying aspirations, structures, and dynamics of change taking place in engineering education and practice through conversations between engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. Calling upon the spirit of philosophers on Bildung such as John Dewey, Jürgen Habermas and contemporaries, the focus of the present project is on broadening engineering education initiatives and practice that follow normative understandings of Bildung. This volume appeals to researchers and students working in philosophy, engineering, and education.

1. Introduction: Contesting Narrow Conceptions of Engineering Education and Practice through the Concept of Bildung.- Part I.  Engineers’ and Technological Experts’ Need for Bildung.- 2. Rethinking Engineering Professionalism through the Concept of Bildung.- 3. Bildung under Conditions of Engineered Destruction.- 4. Bildung, Destruction, and Reconstruction – a Rejoinder to Carl Mitcham.- 5. From the Individual to the Collective Dimension of Bildung in Engineering Education through Challenge Based Learning.- 6. Thinking about Engineering Education: Between Bildung and Citizenship.- Part II.  Intersections between Bildung and Efforts to Broaden Engineering Education.- 7. Bildung: Conformity or Transformation.- 8. Bildung, and how that Concept Sits with Traditional Notions of Teaching Students "how to think" like Engineers.- 9. Appropriateness and Value: Building Critical-Reflexivity and Socio-Political Competency Amongst Undergraduate Engineers in a Third-Year Design Course.- 10. Usefulness and Bildung: Engaging Students in a Bildung-oriented Engineering Education.- Part III.  Bildung in Engineering across Cultural Contexts.- 11. Bildung and Education for Engineering Practice.- 12. Developing A Self-Cultivation Theory for Engineering Education:
A Confucian Perspective.- 13. Humanities and Engineering Education for Gaston Berger from the Perspective of Bildung.- 14. Conclusion: Bildung for Engineering Futures.

Steen Hyldgaard Christensen. MA in Danish Language and Literature and the History of Ideas from Aarhus University. He holds a PhD in research on engineering education from Aalborg University. Until 2014, he was a senior lecturer at Aarhus University. Since 2014, he is an adjunct associate professor at Aalborg University. He is initiator, coordinator, lead editor, and co-author of several edited volumes on engineering education, and epistemology; five of them published in the Springer Nature POET series edited by Pieter Vermaas. He has published articles on engineering epistemology, culture, and higher education. His current research interests are dynamics in higher education restructuring, and research initiatives to broadening engineering education.

Anders Buch. Docent and head of research program in Centre for Quality of Education, Profession Policy & Practice at VIA University College, Denmark. His empirical research area is focused on professions, professionalism, and technological expert cultures, and his theoretical approach is primarily inspired by Science & Technology Studies, Practice Theory, and classical American Pragmatism. He has published articles and books on knowledge, learning, education, professionalism, and the professional development of engineers. Since 2016 he has served as chief editor of Nordic Journal for Working Life Studies and he has been affiliated with Jönköping University as guest researcher since 2021.