CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 43Engineering Education and Curriculum DevelopmentAfrican cultural and philosophical studiesEngineering Education and Global Impact

Using a social justice approach to decolonize an engineering curriculum

Winberg, Simon, Winberg, Chis·2017·2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)
DOI 10.1109/educon.2017.7942855
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Globally there have been many changes in the roles of universities, in particular the increasing complexity of the university's relationship with the state and society; it is thus unsurprising that there is a growing pressure on engineering programs to become more inclusive, innovative and `relevant' to social needs. This study arises out of a call in South Africa, for the `decolonization' of higher education. There is considerable debate and controversy about what a decolonized curriculum might comprise, and this paper sought to identify elements of a decolonized computer engineering curriculum through interviews with academic and practicing engineers, as well as a student survey. The findings suggest that there are different ways in which a curriculum might be understood as being decolonized (or progressing towards such a state). In this paper we argue that decolonizing a curriculum requires a systematic approach, such as understanding of curriculum development as an activity system in order to identify the elements that require change. We further argue that an appropriate framework, such as Nancy Fraser's tripartite understanding of `social justice' would ensure that the decolonized curriculum is also a socially just one. We use `fictive scripting' to forecast a variety of possible scenarios for a socially just decolonized computer engineering curriculum, based on the data obtained from participants. We then presented these scenarios to faculty to gain their views towards further development. Results of our case study indicate that a socially just decolonized engineering curriculum may need more resources and staffing to achieve its purpose, compared to a more traditional curriculum. The case study suggests further that a decolonized curriculum has benefits, such as improving student motivation, enhancing relevance to the local context and helping to inspire innovative solutions for local needs.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1109/educon.2017.7942855

Cites

25 of 25 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • A community-engaging approach has been shown to be effective in helping engineering students shift their mindset from charity to thinking for the community, to advocate for social justice, and to develop meaningful empathy for specific communities.

    “A community-engaging approach has been shown to be effective in helping engineering students shift their mindset from charity to thinking for the community, to advocate for social justice, and to develop meaningful empathy for specific communities [48, 66].”

    From Robots for Social Justice (R4SJ): Toward a More Equitable Practice of Human-Robot Interaction (2024) · cites this paper as [66]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 26 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Winberg, S., & Winberg, C.
Affiliations
  • University of Cape Town (ZA)
  • Cape Peninsula University of Technology (ZA)
ORCID
Winberg, Simon
Venue
2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)
Publisher
IEEE
Published
2017-04
Pages
248-254
DOI
10.1109/educon.2017.7942855
OpenAlex
W2623380804
Cited by
43
References
26
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3
FWCI
1.53
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Media Technology › Engineering Education and Curriculum Development
  • Social Sciences › Education › African cultural and philosophical studies
  • Social Sciences › Development › Engineering Education and Global Impact
Keywords
decolonisation of higher education, engineering curriculum, social justice, computer engineering education, curriculum development, activity systems, Nancy Fraser, South Africa, student motivation

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review