Learning to design for social justice in community‐engaged engineering

Abstract

Community‐engaged learning initiatives in engineering often struggle to achieve equitable outcomes for community partners because students in such programs often possess a design‐for‐charity mindset, which is characterized by an uncritical desire to help and the design of solutions that address symptoms of inequity without meaningful community involvement. The paradigm of design‐for‐justice seeks more equitable outcomes by illuminating positions of power, leveraging community knowledge, facilitating community participation, and altering the structural causes of inequity.