Article Database

Integrating Social Justice and Political Engagement into Engineering

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Many engineering activists have emphasized the need to reframe engineering as a sociotechnical field in order to expand engineers’ contributions to social justice and peace. Yet, reframing engineering as sociotechnical does not always lead to critical engagement with social justice. We provide several examples of how “social” aspects have been brought into engineering in a depoliticized manner that limits engagement with political and social justice goals. We link these examples to Cech’s three pillars of the “culture of disengagement” in engineering: social/technical dualisms, meritocracy, and depoliticization. We argue that reframing engineering as sociotechnical addresses the first pillar, the social/technical dualism, but does not necessarily include the second and third pillars. We propose that all three pillars can be addressed through integrating explicit attention to political engagement and social justice in efforts to reframe engineering as a sociotechnical field. Doing so can increase engineers’ capacity to contribute to social justice and peace.

Bringing in “The Social” : Resisting and Assisting Social Engagement in Engineering Education

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This paper explores how students experience the integration of social knowledge into engineering education. Engineering for peace requires going beyond purely technical engineering towards an integrated social and technical understanding of how engineering can promote community development and societal good. This study focuses on student experiences at two major engineering for community development programs that are actively integrating social and technical knowledge in engineering education, with the goal of training more socially-engaged engineers. We find that knowledge of the social context and implications of engineering creates tensions and conflicts with established technocentric norms of engineering knowledge and practice. This makes the adoption and integration of these concepts challenging for students engaged in these fields. We conclude that integration of “the social” requires more than shifts in educational content and is also reliant on changes in engineering culture and student support both inside and outside of the classroom in order to challenge normative, technocentric conceptions of engineering identity, knowledge, and practice. This has important implications for peace engineering, because understanding how students are integrating knowledge of “the social” in engineering education is key to the development and support of future peace engineers.

Addressing Pluvial Flash Flooding through Community-Based Collaborative Research in Tijuana, Mexico

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Pluvial flash flooding (PFF) is a growing hazard facing cities around the world as a result of rapid urbanization and more intense precipitation from global warming, particularly for low-resourced settings in developing countries. We present collaborative modeling (CM) as an iterative process to meet diverse decision-making needs related to PFF through the co-production of flood hazard models and maps. CM resulted in a set of flood hazard maps accessible through an online viewer that end-users found useful and useable for understanding PFF threats, including debris blockages and barriers to mobility and evacuation. End-users of information included individuals concerned with general flood awareness and preparedness, and involved in infrastructure and emergency management, planning, and policy. CM also showed that rain-on-grid hydrodynamic modeling is needed to depict PFF threats in ways that are intuitive to end-users. These outcomes evidence the importance and transferability of public health rationale for community-based research and principles used here including recognizing community as a unit of identity, building on strengths of the community, and integrating knowledge for the benefit of all partners.

Collaborative Modeling With Fine‐Resolution Data Enhances Flood Awareness, Minimizes Differences in Flood Perception, and Produces Actionable Flood Maps

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The Influence of Hazard Maps and Trust of Flood Controls on Coastal Flood Spatial Awareness and Risk Perception

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Understanding the impact of digital, interactive flood hazard maps and flood control systems on public flood risk perception could enhance risk communication and management. This study analyzed a survey of residents living near California’s Newport Bay Estuary and found that self-rated nonspatial perceptions of dread or concern over future flood impacts were positively associated with spatial awareness of flood-prone areas. Trust in flood control systems was associated with greater spatial flood hazard awareness but weaker nonspatial dread or concern, suggesting residents who witnessed and trust flood control systems developed a confident sense of flood-prone areas and that this confidence reduced the overall nonspatial sense of flood dread and concern. Viewing a flood hazard map eliminated differences in spatial hazard awareness between subgroups that existed prior to viewing a map, and viewing a map with estimated flood depth and greater spatial differentiation was associated with higher levels of postmap spatial awareness.

Integrating Resident Digital Sketch Maps with Expert Knowledge to Assess Spatial Knowledge of Flood Risk: A Case Study of Participatory Mapping in Newport Beach, California

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Public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) have been increasingly used to assess resident spatial knowledge of environmental hazards and to validate and supplement expert estimates of hazardous areas with local knowledge, but few studies have demonstrated methods for directly comparing local and expert knowledge of the spatial distribution of hazards. This study collected PPGIS digital sketch maps of flood-prone areas from 166 residents living adjacent to the Newport Bay Estuary in Southern California to examine variations in spatial knowledge of flood risk. First, we assessed agreement among participants and found that residents of areas with a higher percentage of homeowner, older, and higher income residents had greater agreement regarding areas at risk of flooding. Second, we introduced composite indices to assess the agreement between participant sketches of flood-prone areas with modeled estimates of the distribution of flood hazards, and found that the level of agreement between local and expert knowledge varied by the scale of analysis and by personal and contextual factors. Respondents with higher educational attainment, household income, and homeownership were associated with greater agreement between resident sketch maps and expert estimates of hazardous areas. Results inform spatial aspects of flood risk planning and communication by demonstrating how digital sketch maps can be used to identify potential shortcomings of expert hazard models, as well as hazardous areas where resident risk perception may be weak.

Communicating Flood Risk: Looking Back and Forward at Traditional and Social Media Outlets

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The communication of information about natural hazard risks to the public is a difficult task for decision makers. Research suggests that newer forms of technology present useful options for building disaster resilience. However, how effectively these newer forms of media can be used to inform populations of the potential hazard risks in their community remains unclear. This research uses primary data from an in-person survey of 164 residents of Newport Beach, California during the spring of 2014 to ascertain the current and preferred mechanisms through which individuals receive information on flood risks in their community. Factor analysis of survey data identified two predominant routes of dissemination for risk information: older traditional media and newer social media sources. A logistic regression model was specified to identify predictors for choosing a particular communication route. This analysis revealed that age is the central factor in predicting the sources people use to receive risk information. We follow the analysis by discussing this finding and its policy implications.

Youth Empowerment Through Video Game Development: Creativity Through Art, Design, and Programming

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My research examines the outcomes of engaging youth in art, design, and programming to create video games. This study targeted under-served minority and low-income youth, (primarily Blacks and Hispanics) aged 11-18. Specifically, I examined the characteristics chosen by participants when designing themselves as main characters in their games, and how students with no prior knowledge of programming and digital media art responded to the challenges within game development. Throughout this action-research project, I encouraged students to incorporate a social justice theme or idea in their game design, which led to certain tensions and challenges in the process. Having to check my own bias towards expected visual outcomes and effectively instruct in all three areas of art, design, and programming under time constraints presented direct challenges. I collected data via a mixed method, utilizing observation, surveys, interviews, and action research at three community arts centers in Chicago, Illinois. At one arts center I observed and interviewed high school aged participants for eight 2-hour video game workshops. At the other two centers, I served as the primary instructor, facilitating a ten-day workshop and a seven-day workshop with middle school participants. I guided students through the creation of their own 2D side-scroller games, utilizing digital imaging software and a game creation software package called Stencyl. Throughout these courses I recorded field notes, collected sample drawings, and captured screenshots of the games. Overall, participants enjoyed the video game development process and found it challenging, while transforming their views of the many commercial games they play. Participants gravitated toward their own learning interests throughout content creation, reflected in their attention to carefully designed images, animation, or learning to code. This research contributes to a critical analysis of a popular medium that is still growing in its capacity for use throughout the world of art education, general education, and entertainment. The project generated a synergistic energy that resonated on several levels, combining a process (game development) and product (a game) with a value system, each of which potentially contributed to enhanced learning ability, acquisition of technology-based skills, and the development of critical thinking in students. This study is of value to art educators, as well as other educators who are interested in the potential for introducing this creative curriculum in their classrooms.

Polypharmacy in Patients with Ovarian Cancer

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240 First Year Experience of Hereditary Testing in Gynecological Cancer Patients in a Clinical Setting in the Bahamas

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