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Engineering in Society (1985) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 92-95

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From page 92...
... Engineering as Social Practice The practice of engineering, like the engineering profession, also can be analyzed in cultural terms. In an earlier historical period, when there were many fewer engineers and engineering specialties than there are today, it was not unreasonable to think that all engineers shared a single set of professional values and followed careers that conformed to a common pattern.
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From page 93...
... This is obviously a question of great importance, for all social organizations must develop ways of ensuring that those who function within them will demonstrate considerable concern for and allegiance to the goals the organization is attempting to realize. We should therefore not object to Vonnegut s concentration on tnls facet ot engineering practice, but should rather be prepared to examine the issue he raises and the conflicts engineers experience as important aspects of the culture of engineering practice.
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From page 94...
... Engineering education, like other forms of professional education, must inspire as well as inform, and it is reasonable to ask whether engineering students ought to have their attention directed to the aspects of engineering practice highlighted by Vonnegut and Kidder. Indeed, there is some evidence that engineering students have a strong sense of self-preservation on this score.
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From page 95...
... ENGINEERING IN AN INCREASINGLY COMPLEX SOCIETY 95 reduce the corps to an agency that merely contracted with engineers in private practice for such services as it needed. He is therefore a suitable representative of the subculture of public engineering for the era in which he lived.
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Key Terms

  • engineering practice
  • engineering students
  • engineering specialties
  • engineering educators
  • social practice

  • edward constant
  • contemporary engineering
  • martin reuss
  • engineering societies
  • engineers work

  • professional education
  • engineers experience
  • cultural terms
  • natural knowledge
  • students ought

  • common culture
  • engineering profession
  • trade associations


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