Professional Contention, Discursive Action, and Work: The Case of American Engineering

• In Event: 3222 - Organizations, Occupations, and Work: Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 01: Professions, Agency, and Resistance

Abstract

Sociologists of profession have recently developed ecological approaches that take professional action and practice seriously. These theoretical frameworks also draw attention to the linkages and connections between multiple professional ecologies. However, studies of the different mechanisms through which these relationships are sustained and developed are lacking. This results into a gap in our understanding of phenomena such as how instances of professionals’ organization around social problems to challenge the status quo—professional contention—affects the future of professionals—their identity and work, as well as their role in shaping social change through such inter-ecology relationships. Our paper addresses this gap by looking at the link between the profession and the higher education ecology, highlighting the role of academic scholarship about the profession in shaping visions of professional identity and work. We argue that publications about the profession and its history account for the prism-like part of the higher education ecology, which is important though neglected compared to the pipeline-like part of the ecology, the teaching component of the higher education ecology. This paper focuses on the case of the engineering profession and presents an analysis of the discourse in scholarly writing about engineering contention through time. The authors show the extent to which scholars’ vision of the activist engineer involves a reimagining of the boundaries of and relationships shaping engineering identity and work.

Authors

• Joris Gjata, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Matthew Rowe, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Shawhin Roudbari, University of Colorado-Boulder