CC BY
79
Aleksandsa A. Kazakova Senior Lecturer,
Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas;
PhD Candidate, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia; e-mail: [email protected]
Elena A. Gavrilina
PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia; e-mail: [email protected]
Engineers in Action: Investigating Collective Agency in Sociology of Engineering
УДК: 316.1
DOI: 10.24411/2079-0910-2021-11007
In this article we are mapping an extensive body of empirical research which constitutes the emerging field of sociology of engineering. The aim is to define its subject matter within the wider field of sociology of technology, on the one side, and its specific optics within the interdisciplinary complex of engineering studies, on the other side. To this end, we analyze the research literature that has been accumulated since 1960s when the term "sociology of engineering" started appearing in the publications. Acknowledging conventionality of all the intra— and interdisciplinary demarcations, we argue that the distinguishing feature of sociology of engineering is its focus on agency in production of technologies, which requires bringing together the social context and the substantive content of engineering activity. The micro-macro conceptualization of engineering activity implies bridging the research on collective action of engineers with study of the routine engineering practices. To this end, we structure the material around two topics: the engineering professional societies in macrosociological perspective and the engineering communities of practice in microsociological studies. Investigating the engineering agency, we claim, is crucial for the commonly declared goal of introducing the principle of social responsibility in engineering education, which may be regarded as "finalization" of knowledge in sociology of engineering.
Keywords: engineering associations, engineering profession, engineering labor, engineering education, communities of practice, engineering activity, responsible engineering, comparative studies in engineering.
Introduction
Sociology of technology aims to trace the mutual effects of social and technological change. However, the processes of production of technological knowledge and artifacts
© Казакова А.А., Гаврилина Е.А., 2021
cannot be considered in isolation from their holders and producers, namely, engineers as a social group, which is embedded into broader social context. Thus, sociological study of engineering provides better understanding of agency in technological development.
The particular sides of engineering have been studied in an extensive sociological literature. This includes, but is not limited to: institutionalization and evolution of the engineering profession; resources, decision-making and interplay with economic and political groups and institutions; engineering cultures and identity; routine engineering practices; transfer of knowledge within and outside educational institutions, etc. However, "sociology of engineering" as a term is rarely used in the West: it remains in the shadow of the more institutionalized fields of sociology and philosophy of technology, STS and engineering studies. In contrast, "sociology of engineering" is a well-established term in China, where it follows the tradition of sociology of science and investigates the collective engineering agency ("professional community" and "activity community") [Li, 2008, 2012].
Our aim is to systematize the empirical research in Western literature which may constitute subfield of sociology of engineering by focusing on collective agency of engineers. The structure of the work is thus as follows: the first part describes the early but unsystematic appearance of engineers in the classical sociological texts; the second part is focused on analysis of the current problems and approaches in "macrosociology" of engineering with a focus on professional societies; the third part deals with the "microsociology" of engineering with a focus on communities of practice; the last part concludes with possible applications of sociology of engineering in engineering education.
Pre-history: Sociology of engineering before sociology of engineering
Institutionalization of sociology of technology was complicated by the problem of its separation from the general social theory, which historically emerged in response to the Western industrialization. As R. Gunderson put it, "modern technology and social science were twin-born" [Gunderson, 2016, p. 40]. Class conflict and the new forms of solidarity, rationalization and massification, urbanism and mobility have become the agenda for self-reflection of the industrializing societies. Even if not conceptualized as such, social construction and social implications of technologies have always been present in sociological classics. However, despite their fascination with the coming industrial society, little attention was given by the classical theorists to engineers as agents of this dramatic social change, much more — to their knowledge and labor, both reified in the "machines". Despite their role in the modern project, engineers and their agency stayed almost unnoticed and the logic of technological progress depersonalized [Mitcham, 2019]. However, there were a few remarkable exceptions. Following Saint-Simone, Auguste Comte specified the role of engineers in the industrialization. Karl Marx and, influenced by him, Torstein Veblen both discussed the ambiguous and unique position of engineers in the social structure of industrial societies.
Comte's perception of engineers as an intermediate class, positioned "between scientists properly so called and the effective directors of production enterprises" arose from his understanding of the "positive stage" of social development: their "special mission is to organize the relations between theory and practice" [cit. in: Weiss, 1982, p. 95]. This was the first leitmotif which would later be repeated — and contested — in the further sociolo-
gical research on engineering: the technocratic image of an engineer as a personification of progress.
Marxist approach to engineers as a social group was essentially more critical. As argued in "Capital", engineers as employees do not belong to the capitalist class — instead, they are an element of "total worker". However, they are alienated from the interests of workers, not only due to higher status and qualification, but also through the direct or indirect technological control over their labor. Technology has no autonomous logics of development, since the concrete technical solutions (inventions and their applications) are economically motivated. Thus, in numerous controversies, the engineers tend to associate themselves with the interests of employers [Marx 1956; Engels, 1971]. This controversial position of engineers in distribution of social power became the second cross-cutting theme which was frequently debated later.
The most extensive technocratic narrative about engineering can be found in the works of T. Veblen (2001). His concept of modern engineering was based on his idea of the impersonal and comprehensive industrial system, emerging in the early XX century, which could only be functional under unanimous control of the industrial experts. According to Veblen, first consulting engineers, and then efficiency engineers — the "commercialized technologists" — were becoming progressively aware of the wasteful mismanagement by the technologically ignorant businessmen. The experience of the First World War became a catalyst, demonstrating the underestimated potential of the industrial systems, mobilized for the "nation at large". In the same way, the capitalists underutilized the potential of engineers themselves, who were "born, bred, and trained at the cost of the community at large" [Veblen, 2001, p. 44]. Even though the professional societies, "engineered by the elder engineers", still had the commercial bias, Veblen hoped that the new generation would overcome the vested interests of both capital and labor for realization of public good. It would only require the mobilization of this 1 per cent of population to establish the new, progressive order, which will go beyond the national borders, since the industrialized world was becoming "a single going concern". In short, the promise of planetary progress was related by Veblen to the collective action of engineers. Working in the New School of Social Research, Veblen planned a large-scale comprehensive study of engineers, which, however, failed due to the lack of funding. It remains unknown, if he would revise his concept of engineering, deduced from his understanding of new industrial system, having faced the empirical evidence of the real engineering practices.
The systematic empirical research of engineering was still to be undertaken. However, the major problems of its conceptualization have already been touched upon by the classics:
— the "universalism" of technical rationality of engineers,
— the ambiguous position of engineers in the social structure between the working class and management,
— the process of self-realization and mobilization of engineers' agency.
These problems repeatedly occurred and were reformulated on the concrete historical material in the further research on engineering.
Macrosociological approach to engineering: Formation of the professional societies
In historical perspective, institutionalization of engineering was closely linked to the developmental policies of the nation-states. Thereby, the research on dynamics of engineering sheds the light on some of the problems addressed by historical sociology and the theories of social development, such as expansion and diversity of the "modernity project", discontinuities of the "catch-up" and "forced" modernizations, technology transfer and international competition. Summarizing the research in the national histories of engineering profession, we can identify the key structural factors which are sociologically conceptualized on this macro-level:
1. The pre-industrialization legacy. Extensive historical research has been made to trace the pre-industrial development of engineering, or "pre-engineering" [Gorokhov, 1990]; of special interest are the processes evolving in the "long XVIII century", when the military engineering corps and science-oriented engineering schools emerged in Europe [Alder, 2014; Vérin, Gouzévitch, 2014]. In comparative perspective, engineering profession emerged along with nation-building. In the pre-nation-state societies (such as XVIIIs century Italy) the highly fragmented, diffusive and multidirectional developments in profession occurred [Lorenzo, 2011].
The pre-industrial social structure conditions, though does not determine, the social basis for industrialization. The craft tradition (guilds) and the pursuit of the aristocracy to maintain its status through military and state carriers both lay the foundations of the future qualified technical labor: the social origins of engineers and the style of their education, reproduced by the admission barriers. The comparative studies reveal variety of models of early professionalization even in Western capitalist economies: on the one pole, there is British model, with its practice-oriented, internship-based and inclusive training; on the other pole, there is French pattern of "grandes ecoles" which dominated for more than two centuries [Bouffartigue, Cadéa, 1997]. American and German systems partially followed and partially developed their own models of production of the engineering cadres [Meiskins et al, 1996].
2. The industrialization model. This question, largely debated in historical sociology and macrohistory [Polanyi, 2014; Hobsbawm, 1980; Wallerstein, 2004], may be simplified for our purposes to a few parameters, such as the level of state power and bureaucratization, the structure and orientation of a national market and colonial policies. Through the dominating business models and the pace of growth of the private industry they define the degree of "demand-oriented" production of engineers, that is, influence of business management on the outcomes of engineering education, certification rules and engineers' internal positions within the enterprises [Marsden, Smith, 2007; Noble, 1979; Meiskins et al., 1996]. Apart from that, the industrialization model is conditioned by the military competition which may be the major incentive for borrowing the models of production of engineers, affect the process of differentiation between civil and military engineering in earlier periods, and the state projecting of engineering cadres later [Hecht, Edwards, 2007]. The very special field of research here are the non-Western models of industrialization, including "catchup", socialist and post-colonial scenarios [Ramnath, 2013; Wang, 2015; Pauer, 2012], in which the processes of national production of engineering through international learning and adaptation are particularly intensive.
Thus, from the very general problems of the industrialization models and national variations of "modernization" stems a very concrete question of the "best practice" — that
is, the optimal way of organization of technical labor and possibility of its implementation in different societal contexts. The repeated emulations in management, education and development policies, of which engineers appear both as subjects and as objects [Moutet, 1975], help to trace the international interaction and mutual learning in technological development. The early examples of such "chain reactions" can be found in mushrooming of the royal academies of sciences in the late XVII — early XVIII centuries (which, despite of their name, from the very beginning "had predominantly utilitarian motives" [Lorenzo, 2011, p. 175], and of the engineering corps and academies later. On the whole, the "divergence-convergence" process in production of engineers is the way the dialectics of international competition and technology transfer manifests itself.
3. The peculiarities of class structure. Although this issue is inseparable from the previous two, we must take into account the specific logic of labor and capital relationship in the national contexts. With their contradictory position of the qualified salaried employees (more wide-spread than entrepreneurship), engineers exemplify the problems of sociological conceptualization of the middle class. This ambiguous position leads to repeated recombination of their coalitions in the class conflict: pro- and anti-unionism, participation in industrial or labor unions and their relations with political parties [Meiskins et al., 1996] and in ideological discourse about class and national interests [Croucher, 1982].
However, though all these factors are important for reconstruction of formation of engineering in concrete national contexts, as themselves they are not exclusive for sociology of engineering; rather, they represent commonality of its interests with the earlier developed branches of sociology. In fact, localizing professional groups and identities in the social structure is central for sociology of professions, even though engineering may be a particularly complicated case in this field due to the national peculiarities [Gispen, 1988]; the distribution of control and responsibilities at the workplace has been traditionally studied by industrial sociology [Schneider, 1950]. What can be regarded as a specific problem for sociology of engineering, grasping both the social context and content of engineering activity, is the development of collective action in engineering societies.
Symptomatically, some of the earliest publications in English with the term "sociology of engineering" in their titles were linked to activity of professional associations. A review in Nature (1966) presented large-scale survey of 25000 chartered engineers in Britain, funded by the Ministry of Technology and headed by the Council of Engineering Institutions, which attempted to provide information on skills, responsibilities, training and wages, aiming for "better usage of engineering talent" [Nature, 1966, p. 866]. A short editorial "Sociology of Engineering" in the journal of American Chemical Society (currently the largest scientific society, integrating chemistry and chemical engineering) was contributing both to the old discourse on professional recognition and the emerging agenda of social responsibility [Gushee, 1966].
The professional engineering societies (associations, councils, institutions and other forms of professional organizations) have long been the agents of self-reflection, self-definition, and self-construction of engineering. The structure and status of professional societies and degree of their autonomy reflected the engineers' position in the social structure and representation of their interests. The process of professionalization included professional closure, standardization and certification in educational and legislative fields and collective negotiations with capital and state. Thus, professional societies can be regarded as both the agent and the product of professionalization.
The activities of engineering societies are well-documented. The organizational challenges have been discussed in numerous policy statements, annual reports, inauguration speeches and publications, concerning selection principles and access for other stakeholders, limits for proliferation within the profession, balance between centralization and reach [Lieb, 1905]. The self-construction process also implied competition, learning and experience-sharing between the professional associations at the national and international levels.
Professional bodies participate in public debate upon use of technologies and there is evidence that their inner structure affects the crucial decisions in STI policies (e.g., privatization or nationalization of emerging technology [Meiskins et al., 1996]). Their visions of professionalism and self-representation were enshrined in the ethical codes, and the mechanisms of implementation and compliance with them were developed, though not necessarily efficiently [Mitcham, 2019; Tang, Nieusma, 2003; Herkert, 2003]. Society of German Engineers (VDI), which was initially not as influential as professional societies in Britain and the USA [Gispen, 1988], developed a unique scale of theoretical activity and made profound contributions to philosophy and sociology of technology and engineering ethics [Ludwig et al., 1981; Mitcham, 1999; Mitcham, Nan, 2015].
In short, the professional societies had been doing sociology of engineering long before sociologists. Nowadays, sociology of globalizing engineering, apart from naturally intensified research on educational and professional mobility [Comay, 1970; Jin, 2005; Anduaga, 2011], can learn a lot about comparative and global perspective of socio-technical development from transnationalisation of engineering societies. The most illustrative is the development of ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineering) — ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), which now includes more than 150,000 members in 174 countries [Parry et al., 2016] and is doing extensive work on methodology, application and monitoring of fulfillment of the Washington Accord and ABET Criteria [Lattuca et al., 2006].
Microsociological approach to engineering: The inner life of communities of practice
The macro-sociological picture of national or global development of engineering is to be complemented by the micro-sociological optics. STS and engineering studies have aggregated extensive material tracing the technologies in-the-making, based on historical reconstructions as well as ethnographies and lab-studies. Even though the disciplinary distinctions in social sciences and humanities are rather conventional when it comes to qualitative methodologies, we suggest that a sociological approach within this interdisciplinary complex could be focused on conceptualizing communities of practice.
In T. Kuhn's work the notion of scientific community was complementary to the notion of paradigm: community is integrated by the paradigm and paradigm is shared by the community [Kuhn, 1970]. R.K. Merton's sociology of science was focused on scientific ethos, integrating the scientific community [Merton, 1968]. An empirical approach to community needs to grasp not only self-identification of members with a social group, but the actually shared range of epistemic and ethical norms, including production of explicit and tacit knowledge and meanings, professional ethos, conventions which are taken for granted, etc.
However, engineering community does not exist in the same way as scientific community which is virtually transnational or at least has a strong identity encompassing generations of scientists through international communication [Mitcham, 2019]. Instead, engineers are dispersed across industries and projects — which also makes it so hard to conceptualize their activity outside of concrete context. Hence, we find it more helpful to speak not about "engineering community", but about "engineering communities of practice".
The notion of "community of practice" was elaborated in sociology of communities [Wenger, 2008], describing "a group of people who share an interest in a domain of human endeavor and engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them: a tribe, a garage band, a group of engineers working on similar problems" [Smelser, Baltes, 2001, p. 2339]. Being exemplary enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedic article, engineering communities of practice, even if not named as such, have become the subject of microsociological, ethnographical and anthropological studies, with predominantly qualitative methodologies and special focus on communication, apprenticeship, professional socialization, "mini-cultures", situated learning and localized practices [Bucciarelli, 1994; Downey, 2014].
The question may be posed then, if there is "engineering practice" as such, or "engineering practices" that are subject to merely empirical description? This is a part of more general debate on "technology" and "technologies" that has indicated the "empirical turn" in philosophy of technology [Achterhuis, 2001], which resulted in emergence of empirically-oriented philosophy of engineering. According to P. Dias, "practice is arguably the most important philosophical issue where engineering is concerned" [Dias, 2019, p. 1], not only due to the gap between theoretical education and practical challenges at the workplace, but due to the fundamental problem of formalization of engineering knowledge and contingency of the contextualized engineering solutions.
A typically sociological solution could be to leave this puzzle for philosophers and ask the engineers what they think their practice actually is. There is more or less common understanding of engineering as an activity of solving the problems under the existing constraints, but it is complicated by the iterative processes of re-formulation of the problems and re-articulation of the constraints [Sheppard et al, 2007]. The result of this learning process is the specifically technological or engineering knowledge which cannot be merely derived from natural sciences. As claimed by Vincenti, "the inseparability of knowledge and its practical application is in fact a distinguishing characteristic of engineering" [Vincenti, 1997, p. 207]. More than that, it was shown that "engineering knowledge" includes a large body of non-technical, or contextual, knowledge.
The STS works in social construction of technology [Bijker et al., 2012] and actor-network theory [Latour, 2015] argued for broader understanding of agency in techno-scientific production. Emergence of technologies was regarded as a process of negotiations and decision-making in the larger networks of participants, or stakeholders, consolidating, competing and contesting each other's agency. The concept of community of practice, probably, is not able to include non-human agency. However, it helps to grasp "heterogeneity of engineering" [Law, 1987] to some extent, since it is not necessarily limited to a group of certified specialists and includes both the engineering influences of non-engineers and the non-engineering logics of engineers. Finally, a community of practice is where a participant observer finds herself, since descriptivist position has been giving way to the engaged approaches under various names (Constructive Technology Assessment [Schot, Rip, 1997], Socio-technical Integration Research [Fisher et al., 2015], Responsible
Research and Innovation), which on the whole may be characterized as "co-engineering among engineers" [Grunwald, 2019] or "critical participation" [7ork, 2018].
Even though the "grounded studies of technical work" were sometimes opposed to the macrosociological picture of engineering in social and professional structure [Barley, 2005], these two perspectives are not necessarily in conflict, and both of levels may shed the light on — paraphrasing K. Alder — "designing an engineer" [Alder, 1999]. The routine practices and cultural transmission can be related to the structural conditions of professional recruitment by contextualizing the engineering communities in comparative perspective and bringing into question the social epistemology of engineering: peculiarities of the "national schools", as well as class-, gender- and race-related mechanisms [Meiksins et al., 1996; Christensen et al., 2012]. Thus, the focus on engineering community of practice allows oscillating between the "immediate experience" and social structures.
Sociology of engineering in engineering education
The distinction between the micro- and macro-levels in sociology of engineering is, of course, merely analytical. Comprehensive sociological study is aimed to grasp the multiple levels of social processes, overcoming the micro-macro and agent-structure oppositions. This is not only a theoretical, but also the practical problem of sociological intervention.
We have already mentioned the institutions of engineering education as produced by macro-structural mechanisms of the national developmental policies and as producers of micro-cultures of problem-solving inside and outside of the classroom. Engineering education can be regarded as a mechanism of transmission of professional knowledge, ethics and attitudes, but also as a result of the interplay of state, market and public expectations and demands. Meeting the national and international accreditation requirements, universities still are able to appropriate them and shape the educational environment. In other words, engineering education is a point of self-reflection of engineering, where the epistemological and ethical norms and learning practices meet politico-economical constraints.
Integration of "non-technical" knowledge and principles of responsibility into engineering education has been documented as a priority in a variety of strategies, missions, accreditation criteria and other declarative documents of professional and educational organizations in different countries [Kazakova, 2020]. Still, this call for humanization of technological knowledge may stay another good intention unless sociology provides a clearer picture of what "embeddedness" of engineering activity in society actually means [Mitcham, 2009; Kline, 2002]. Therefore, "finalization" of sociology of engineering may happen within educational institutions: basing on conceptualization of agency, it should enable reflexivity of the agents.
Even though engineering ethics is currently dominating the scene in socio-humanitarian discourse on engineering education, stimulated by ABET accreditation activity, there are arguments for broadening its context by focusing on "the social structure and the way it both enables and constrains socially responsible conduct" [Conlon, 2008, p. 151]. Sociology of engineering within engineering institutions may be a part of "scalable scholarship" which "opens up engineering formation" by "contesting the dominant epistemological contents of engineering practices by integrating practices of critical self-analysis in the core of engineering curricula" [Downey, 2009, p. 55; see also Downey, 2015].
Conclusion
"Sociology of engineering" may be used as an umbrella term for an extensive body of research in the fields of sociology of professions and social groups, sociology of work and industrial sociology. It shares its interest in modernity project with historical sociology and theories of social change. It contributes its methodologies to the interdisciplinary complex of STS and engineering studies and provides empirical insights for philosophy of technology and engineering. We suggested that the own subject matter of sociology of engineering can be specified as investigation of collective agency in engineering. It is already present as a cross-cutting topic linking the macrosociological research of professional engineering societies and microsociological study of engineering practices. In its turn, sociological reflection of both the context and the content of engineering activity is crucial for engineering education, since there is a widely recognized need for responsible engineering action.
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Инженеры в действии: коллективная агентность в социологии инженерии
Александра Андреевна Казакова
Российский государственный университет нефти и газа имени И. М. Губкина, МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана,
Москва, Россия; e-mail: [email protected]
Елена Александровна Гаврилина
Московский государственный технический университет им. Н. Э. Баумана,
Москва, Россия; e-mail: [email protected]
В статье проводится теоретико-методологический анализ исследований в формирующейся в настоящее время самостоятельной отрасли — социологии инженерии. Цель работы — определить предмет социологии инженерии в рамках социологии техники, с одной стороны, и в рамках междисциплинарного комплекса социальных исследований инженерии ("engineering studies"), с другой. Рассматривается корпус исследований, начиная с 1960-х гг., когда термин «социология инженерии» впервые встречается в международных публикациях. Учитывая конвенциональность внутри— и междисциплинарных границ, мы утверждаем, что предметной спецификой социологии инженерии является фокус на агентности в производстве технологий, который требует исследования как социального контекста, так и содержания инженерной деятельности. Для преодоления разрыва между микро- и макроуровнями в социологической концептуализации инженерии необходимо исследование коллективного действия и повседневных инженерных практик. Текст работы структурирован вокруг двух тем — инженерных профессиональных сообществ ("societies") в макросоциологической перспективе и инженерных сообществ практики ("communities") в микросоциологических исследованиях. По нашему мнению, императив социальной ответственности в инженерном образовании требует систематического исследования агентности, что может рассматриваться как «финализация» социологии инженерии.
Ключевые слова: инженерная деятельность, профессиональные инженерные сообщества, инженерное дело, инженерная профессия, инженерное образование, сообщества практики, социальная ответственность инженера, сравнительные исследования инженерии.
