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In engineering education in the United States (as elsewhere), it is widely recognized that the percentage of women and minorities who acquire engineering degrees is significantly lower than their representation in the general population. Many studies have investigated the cause of this lack of representation in engineering and other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) degree programs. It is widely recognized that the percentage of women and minorities who acquire engineering degrees is significantly lower than their representation in the general population. Adolescents' occupational identity development depends in large part on their internalized mental models of what a given type of professional “looks like,” their subjective sense of their own capacity to be successful at certain tasks and with certain types of knowledge, and the degree to which they feel as if they belong to a community of practice. This paper considers how the concept of “hidden curriculum” can be applied to how underrepresented students experience engineering education uniquely. The concept of the “hidden curriculum” is used to describe the set of structured learning experiences or conditions that occur beyond the design intent of the learning journey established by the explicit curriculum. The hidden curriculum is typically unintentional, unplanned, and less “controllable” than the explicit curriculum. Despite the difficulty in assessing hidden learning expectations, hidden curriculum consistently places expectations on students beyond the explicit curriculum. It is critical to understand not just what variables prevent underrepresented students from persisting, but also what factors encourage their persistence, as such persistence is critical to ensuring a more diverse engineering workforce. This work focuses on how minoritized groups specifically develop professional identity through the hidden curriculum. We consider their perception of belonging in engineering, their experiences of exclusion in various forms, and the mechanisms by which exclusion transpires. By better understanding the cultural dimensions of exclusion, we hope to advance efforts toward inclusion. 

Dominant approaches to the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been mainly based on individualistic, rule-based ethical frameworks central to Western cultures. These approaches have encountered both philosophical and computational limitations. They often struggle to accommodate remarkably diverse, unstable, complex contexts of human-AI interactions. Recently there has been an increasing interest among philosophers and computer scientists in building a relational approach to the ethics of AI. This article engages with Daniel A. Bell and Pei Wang’s most recent book Just Hierarchy and explores how their theory of just hierarchy can be employed to develop a more systematic account for relational AI ethics. Bell and Wang’s theory of just hierarchy acknowledges that there are morally justified situations in which social relations are not equal. Just hierarchy can exist both between humans and between humans and machines such as AI systems. Therefore, a relational ethic for AI based on just hierarchy can include two theses: (i) AI systems should be considered merely as tools and their relations with humans are hierarchical (e.g. designing AI systems with lower moral standing than humans); and (ii) the moral assessment of AI systems should focus on whether they help us realize our rolebased moral obligations prescribed by our social relations with others (these relations often involve diverse forms of morally justified hierarchies in communities). Finally, this article will discuss the practical implications of such a relational ethic framework for designing socially integrated and ethically responsive AI systems. 

The article argues that mainstream value-sensitive approaches to design have been based on narrow understandings of personhood and social dynamics, which are biased toward Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic cultures and contradicted by empirical evidence. To respond to this weakness, the article suggests that design may benefit from focusing on user behaviours from the joint perspective of values and norms, especially across cultural contexts. As such, it proposes Norm Sensitive Design as a complement to value-sensitive approaches when designing and implementing new technologies. Versus values, norms serve as more accurate predictors or descriptors of behaviours and can thus support valuesensitive approaches to realize the aspiration of informing user behaviour via design. The article makes two key contributions. On the theoretical side, it promotes the consideration of norms in design. On the practical side, it offers designers and instructors prompts for reflecting on design ethics from the perspective of norms. 

Ethics is crucial to engineering, although disagreement exists concerning the form engineering ethics education should take. In part, this results from disagreements about the goal of this education, which inhibit the development of and progress in cohesive research agendas and practices. In this regard, engineering ethics faces challenges like other professional ethics. To address these issues, this paper argues that the ultimate goal of engineering ethics education should be more long-term ethical behaviors, but that engineering ethics must more fully engage with the fields of empirical moral and cultural psychology to do so. It begins by considering reasons for adopting ethical behaviors as the ultimate goal of ethics education, and moves on to discuss why ethical behaviors have not been adopted as the goal of ethics education. The paper ends by considering responses to these problems, why ethical behaviors should still be adopted as the ultimate goal of ethics education. 

Even though engineering programs, accreditation bodies, and multinational corporations have become increasingly interested in introducing global dimensions into professional engineering practice, little work in the existing literature provides an overview of questions fundamental to global engineering ethics, such as what global engineering ethics is, why it should be taught, how it should be taught, and when it should be introduced. This paper describes the what, why, how, and when of global engineering ethics – a form adopted from a 1996 article by Charles Harris, Michael Davis, Michael Pritchard, and Michael Rabins, which has influenced the development of engineering ethics for over twenty-five years. First, this paper describes global engineering ethics as a response to the increasingly cross-cultural, international characteristics of contemporary engineering, as well as four fundamental approaches to conceive and deliver this training (what). Next, it explains the motivations for global engineering ethics: Neither educators nor practitioners can necessarily assume a shared nationality or culture among students or between coworkers (why). Third, this paper discusses how global engineering ethics should be taught: One of the most prevalent approaches uses case studies with a cross-cultural and/or international dimension (how). Finally, it identifies spots within curricula for global engineering ethics: standalone courses, integrated modules, micro-insertions, competence-based training scenarios, and extracurricular activities (when). As the world becomes ever more cross-cultural and international, training in global ethics will be essential for both students and practicing engineers.