Higher educational programs in engineering today are seeking to correct observed disproportionately low enrollment and success rates of minoritized students. However, these attempts fail to address why particular students are underrepresented. Following the framework of Freirean critical theory, class-based exploitation under capitalist economic and governmental structures is identified as the root cause of inequitable educational outcomes. Educators cannot overcome the effects of structurally oppressive systems through traditional methods of controlling classroom and curriculum, and diversity-related programming, which is also not typically targeted toward all socio-economically disadvantaged students, cannot serve those who are unable to access the educational institutions. Thus, in order to correct inequities in education, the role of current educational systems in the perpetuation of capitalist oppression must itself be addressed.
Traditional engineering pedagogical methods fail to address the broad impacts of structural oppression. Alternatively, Freire, McLaren, hooks, and others have developed critical, revolutionary, and liberative pedagogies that aim to dismantle oppressive systems through recognition of hegemonic structures, critical classroom discourse, and opportunities to build solidarity. In this paper, we present an overview of previous uses of these pedagogies in engineering classrooms under the premise of critical theory, which is class-based, and other anti-oppressive theories based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. We also propose a new model that situates these theories relative to one another within the broader classification of identity-based theories. We further outline how critical theory can and must be employed in the study of access to and persistence in engineering education for socio-economically disadvantaged students. Through an embrace of critical theory and its accompanying pedagogy, engineering educators can plant the seeds for changes needed to achieve liberation for all oppressed peoples.
Corin L. Bowen is a doctoral candidate in the aerospace engineering department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her thesis research includes both technical and educational research. Her engineering education research focuses on the interactions between structural oppression and engineering systems. She holds a B.S.E. in civil engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an M.S.E. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, both in the areas of structural engineering and solid mechanics.
Aaron W. Johnson is an Instructor in Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. He teaches courses in structures and vehicle design, and his research focuses on how mathematical models are taught in undergraduate engineering science courses and how these models are used in analysis and design. Before CU he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan and the Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach. He received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2014 and a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 2008.
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