A Threefold Sociotechnical Framework for Engineering

Background: The perceived neutrality of engineering has been discussed in the fields of engineering studies, science and technology studies (STS), and more recently, engineering education. Although scholars have challenged this perceived neutrality, discussions about the sociotechnical nature of engineering tend to focus on specific aspects of the relationship between ‘social’ and ‘technical’ in engineering, instead of a holistic view.

Purpose: This paper contributes to engineering education by presenting a conceptual framework that synthesizes three sociotechnical dimensions of engineering. Our goal is to provide a more holistic perspective to help engineering educators, students, and researchers articulate the political and normative nature of engineering. This way, we can highlight sociotechnical aspects of engineering that are usually muted or not evident when each dimension is considered separately.

Scope: We draw from literature in engineering education, engineering studies, and STS to propose a three-dimensional conceptual framework for engineering as a sociotechnical process, the social groups in each dimension, and the four aspects of the interactions across these groups (Signals, Timing, Direction, and Distance). The three dimensions are: 1) the social construction of engineering, based on normative holism (Downey, 2014) and the social construction of technology (Pinch & Bijker, 1984); 2) the sociotechnical translation of engineering, which draws from the ideas of translation from de Vries (2009) and Bucciarelli (2003); and 3) the sociotechnical system closure, which is grounded in ideas of technological affordances (Gaver, 1991) and normativity in technology (Radder, 2009).

Discussion/Conclusions: We must equip engineering students to address social and environmental justice issues without perpetuating harmful myths about engineering as neutral. A more holistic understanding of the sociotechnical nature of engineering can help students recognize and identify how different social aspects and groups influence and are influenced by engineering work.