2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Studies have revealed education has a legacy of white supremacist ideology engrained in the epistemological and ontological perspectives of history throughout post-secondary education. Subsequently, faculty are key players in perpetuating and dismantling white supremacist ideals that persist in education, as they facilitate students’ education, develop pedagogical practices, and create departmental policies and procedures. Exploring methods of raising consciousness and critical awareness can be integral to developing techniques for engineering faculty to assess and reconstruct their professional practices that influence their mindset as well as engineering education reform.

There are several historical and contemporary definitions of critical consciousness with the focus being on how an individual constructs and (re)constructs their reality. Critical consciousness is an advanced educational pedagogy to liberate the masses from systemic inequity maintained and perpetuated by processes, practices, and outcomes of interdependent systems and institutions (Freire, 1970; Jemal, 2017). Critical consciousness is often situated in the context of analyzing oppressive systemic forces using the cyclic process of critical reflection, critical motivation, and critical action. Critical reflection refers to one’s awareness of historical and systemic forces, critical motivation is a sense of self-efficacy to work against these forces, and critical action is engagement in individual or collective action against oppression.

Traditionally critical consciousness development (e.g., consciousness-raising, critical reflection, and engagement in activism) has been explored in racially/ethnically marginalized groups, specifically youth, young adults, and those socioeconomically disadvantaged. Researchers have found that developing the consciousness of these groups can aid in their engagement in action to make social change in their environments as well as realize their ability to be knowledge producers, not just empty vessels.

Literature has shown that methods such as group discussion, co-learning, and reflective questioning can increase critical awareness and continually develop critical consciousness. These methods can be used with faculty to facilitate their critical consciousness development and serve as a foundation for working against oppressive structures in higher education.
In the context of engineering education, studies have explored how implementing culturally relevant pedagogy through ill-structured problems, critical thinking, and humanitarian engineering can facilitate student critical consciousness. However, there is a gap in engineering education literature regarding the consciousness development of engineering faculty.

Through an extensive review of existing literature and prior research studies, this theoretical paper conveys how critical consciousness is described and employed across various disciplines (e.g., social science and humanities disciplines). Using research-informed data, this body of work draws connections between these disciplines and the field of engineering to uncover potential applications and strategies for faculty consciousness-raising. This paper serves as a foundation for further exploration into the intersection of critical consciousness and engineering education, shedding light on the transformative potential of this multidisciplinary approach to illustrate the intricate relationship between critical consciousness and its prospective utility within engineering education. A traditional lecture-style format is the preferred method of presentation for this paper.