2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The cultural landscape of engineering education can be characterized by the underlying assumption or shared belief that engineering is “hard” (Godfrey & Parker, 2010). While the “hard skills” in the engineering discipline refer to technical domain knowledge, other skillsets that are often sidelined, like professional development and communication skills, are labeled “soft skills.” The downstream effects of classifying human-focused competencies as “soft skills” include the devaluation of these skills as being of lower perceived value and the mistaken belief that these skills are optional or void of intrinsic merit (Berdanier, 2022).. Writing is a fundamental component of engineering practice, shaping not only how technical information is conveyed but also how engineers communicate with stakeholders—a central concern within sociotechnical perspectives of engineering (Paretti, McNair, & Leydens, 2014). In this view, writing involves more than reporting facts; it requires engineers to contextualize information, craft persuasive arguments, and position themselves in relation to their audiences. Through these rhetorical moves, writing constructs identity relationships between the writer and reader, influencing how engineers are perceived and how they enact professional roles (Leydens, 2012; Artemeva, 2009; Windsor, 2003)
This study investigates how engineering students perceive the practice of being ethical engineers through language, with the aim of making language diversity a meaningful component of engineering education. The authors are interested in creating space for diverse language practices within the “dominant” writing style of engineering, which is reducible to standard English, or what April Baker-Bell (2020) has called White Mainstream English. As writing studies scholar Asao Inoue has argued (2018), the proposition that students can only use a white standard of English to be effective communicators is “bullshit” and it “hurts students, Black, Latino/a, Asian, Native/Tribal, and White alike. We all lose” (p.115). Engineering students come from a range of backgrounds, and they bring with them language and literacy practices rooted in their individual histories learning a language at home, then developing various secondary social Discourses at school, places of worship, and workplaces (Gee, 2015).
Inspired by Jenna Tonn’s approach of using historical documents to illuminate the sociotechnical dimensions of engineering, we developed a case study centered on the Flint Water Crisis. The case was designed to engage students in examining how language practices vary across cultural and social contexts, and to highlight the ethical and communicative responsibilities engineers face in real-world scenarios. Presented as part of undergraduate engineering coursework, the case study explicitly connected technical challenges with the socio-political dimensions of engineering practice. We analyze student responses to two guiding questions: “How do you practice being ethical as an engineer through language?” and “What lessons can you learn from the Flint Water Crisis?”This preliminary study showcases the influence of communication style on a socio-technical engineering problem.
Findings from the initial implementation of the Flint Water Crisis case study reveal that students recognized the ethical dimensions of engineering communication, particularly the need to
address social impacts transparently and to adapt language for diverse stakeholders. Students emphasized the importance of accessible, inclusive communication as central to ethical engineering practice, highlighting the potential of case-based instruction to foster reflection on the relationship between language, ethics, and professional identity. In the discussion, we situate these findings in relation to prior work by Yanna Lambrinidou (2018), whose research on lead in drinking water critiques deficit-oriented “doing good” interventions and challenges traditional engineering responses to environmental injustice.
References:
- Godfrey, E., & Parker, L. (2010). Mapping the Cultural Landscape in Engineering Education. Journal of Engineering Education, 99(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2010.tb01038.x
- Artemeva, Natasha. "Stories of becoming: A study of novice engineers learning genres of their profession." Genre in a changing world (2009): 158-178.
- Berdanier, C. G. P. (2022). A hard stop to the term “soft skills.” Journal of Engineering Education, 111(1), 14–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20442
- Halliday, M. A. K. (2004). Language of Science (Vol. 5). https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/language-of-science-9781441155290/
- Barker-Bell, A. (2020). Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy. https://www.routledge.com/Linguistic-Justice-Black-Language-Literacy-Identity-and-Pedagogy/Baker-Bell/p/book/9781138551022
- Inoue, A. B. (2021). Above The Well: An Antiracist Literacy Argument From A Boy of Color. The WAC Clearinghouse; Utah State University Press. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2021.1244
- Gee, J. (2015). Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses. https://www.routledge.com/Social-Linguistics-and-Literacies-Ideology-in-Discourses/Gee/p/book/9781138853867
- Lambrinidou, Y. (2018). When Technical Experts Set Out to “Do Good”: Deficit-Based Constructions of “the Public” and the Moral Imperative for New Visions of Engagement. Michigan Journal of Sustainability, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.3998/mjs.12333712.0006.102
- Leydens, Jon A. "Sociotechnical communication in engineering: An exploration and unveiling of common myths." Sociotechnical Communication in Engineering. Routledge, 2015. 1-9.
- Paretti, Marie C., Lisa D. McNair, and Jon A. Leydens. “Engineering Communication.” Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research. Ed. Aditya Johri and Barbara M. Olds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 601–632. Print.
- Winsor, Dorothy A. Writing power: Communication in an engineering center. Suny Press, 2003.
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