Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on ethnographic research with low income students to explore the relevance for engineering for community development of students’ funds of knowledge or the knowledge and skills that working class families possess to survive and make a living in the midst of economic dislocations

Paper long abstract:

Engineering for sustainable community development (SCD) is a rapidly growing field of practice and education, as evidenced by the success of groups such as Engineers Without Borders (EWB) (Ingenieros Sin Fronteras) in many countries of the Global North and the Global South. Yet engineering educators rarely ask how students' backgrounds might make a difference for how students find motivation for, conceptualize and practice SCD. How might these backgrounds shape the kinds of questions that are asked or the ways in which problems are defined and solved? This paper draws on ethnographic research with low income, first generation (LIFG) students at an engineering university and community college in Colorado to explore the relevance for engineering of the students' funds of knowledge, a term that refers to bodies of knowledge and skills that working class families possess to survive and make a living even in the midst of economic dislocations. Specifically, we find that by virtue of their background experiences, LIFG students develop funds of knowledge in designing and solving problems in the midst of scarcity, empathizing, and recognizing the sociotechnical nature of engineering problem definition, solving and design. These funds of knowledge position them to excel in engineering for SCD, but they must first be converted into different forms of capital with high exchange rates within engineering.