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Abstract BackgroundIncreasing engineering students' engagement with public welfare is central to promoting ethical responsibility among engineers and enhancing engineers' capacity to serve the public good. However, little research has investigated how student experience attempts to increase engagement with public welfare concerns. Purpose/HypothesisThis study identifies and analyzes the challenges facing efforts to increase engineering students' engagement with the social and ethical implications of their work through a study of students' experiences at two engineering programs that emphasize public welfare engagement. Design/MethodsWe conducted interviews with engineering students (n= 26) and ethnographic observations of program events, classes, presentations, and social groups (n= 60) at two engineering programs that focus on engagement with public welfare and foreground learning about the social context and social impacts of engineering. We analyzed these data to identify areas in which students experienced challenges integrating considerations of public welfare into their work. ResultsWe found that four main areas where engineering students experienced difficulty engaging with considerations of public welfare: (a) defining and defending their identities as engineers; (b) justifying the value of nontechnical work and relevance to engineering; (c) redefining engineering expertise and integrating community knowledge into projects; and (d) addressing ambiguous questions and ethics. ConclusionsThis work contributes to knowledge about the barriers to increasing students' engagement with issues of public welfare, even when programs encourage such engagement. These findings are relevant to broader efforts to increase concerns for ethics, social responsibility, and public welfare among engineers. 

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.