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From Feminist Hacker Meet-ups to Engineering Educators: Implications of Social Movements in Technology for Change-making at the Level of Higher Education

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Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

Women in Engineering Division Technical Session 6

Tagged Division

Women in Engineering

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--32863

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/32863

Download Count

397

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Paper Authors

biography

Ellen K. Foster Purdue University-Main Campus, West Lafayette (College of Engineering)

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Dr. Ellen K Foster currently holds a post-doctoral appointment in the engineering education department at Purdue University. She received her doctorate in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechninc Institute in 2017, and holds her BA in Astronomy and Physics from Vassar College.

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biography

Donna M. Riley Purdue University-Main Campus, West Lafayette (College of Engineering)

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Donna Riley is Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education and Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University.

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Abstract

This paper presentation shares nascent research into the organizing practices of feminist technology activists who are concerned with how technologies (and subsequent knowledges about them) are defined, framed, further developed, shared, and in turn shape the worlds in which we live. They intend to bring a frame of reflexivity toward awareness of the politics imbued in technology as well as the often exclusionary cultures entangled therein. Beyond the descriptive, this research asks: What might an analysis of the practices and mindsets of such groups contribute to the world of engineering education, specifically for educators interested in change-making strategies for creating a more equitable higher education environment that takes on issues of racism, sexism, heteronormativity, ableism, etc.? With a theoretical grounding in the work of Myles Horton and the Highlander Institute’s theory of change, bell hooks’ liberatory pedagogies, and social movement theory from a Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective, this presentation aims to examine how current social movements in technology, specifically the organizing work of feminist hacker and tech collectives as well as those working with Open Science Hardware, might inform changes to engineering practice via educational reform. Data collection for this work involves participant observation from four different meetings and discursive analysis of websites and promotional materials. The result is a multi-modal analysis which will then be brought into conversation with previous work on over 30 interviews with engineering education practitioners who have identified issues in the discipline and are interested in enacting change in the higher institutional setting. Such work has implications for engineering education reform and organizing possibilities toward enabling educators to seed the changes they seek.

Foster, E. K., & Riley, D. M. (2019, June), From Feminist Hacker Meet-ups to Engineering Educators: Implications of Social Movements in Technology for Change-making at the Level of Higher Education Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32863

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