On Winner (1980).
What constitutes an artifact?
In your engineering career thus far, has the “care attention” Winner describes on p. 127 been given to your designs? Why or why not?
How do Winner’s examples of political artifacts illustrate how technologies affect human behavior? Do these demonstrate how human motives can be embedded into physical design?
On Leydens & Lucena (2018) and IDEO: Deep Dive.
Reading the introduction to the book will provide deeper context to the information covered in chapter 1.
Define for yourself each of the twelve barriers presented by Leydens & Lucena.
Identify the “barriers to rendering social justice visible” evident in the IDEO video and explain they’re function.
Consider the IDEO shopping cart design process: “What is placed into the problem? What and who is left out? Whose perspectives (interests, values, knowledge, desires) are emphasizes, de-emphasized, or ignored?" (p. 19).
The IDEO culture has become the template for high tech companies, especially in Silicon Valley. What elements of this culture do you think are important for innovation and which do you think are unnecessary?
What should be incorporated into a modern design environment to aid in designing for inclusion?
On journey mapping.
When producing your journey map, what stood out to you?
Where you surprised by any of your past attitudes or opinions?
What changes does your journey map reflect? Where those changes for the better?
After revisiting an old engineering problem.
Based on the problem you analyzed, “Who and what is engineering for? From how engineering is taught and practiced, who benefits? Who does not benefit from engineering advances? Who suffers or is constrained by what is created?” (Leydens & Lucena 2018, p. 19).
Is it possible to change “who benefits” from solving the problem you analyzed?
On O’Connor, Peck, and Cafarella (2015).
What is the difference between trajectories of membership and trajectories of naturalization. Consider personal examples of both.
How do you resonate with the description of legitimacy as related to the curricular flowchart on p. 175: “Students whose activities correspond with those inscribed in the flowchart are legitimized, whereas students whose activities deviate from the flowchart are not”.
Consider an analogous training plan for new employees; have you felt ahead of or behind coworkers because of your progress through the plan? Can you determine other examples (outside of school or work) where you have felt ahead of or behind others because of a predetermined path?
Do you think the testing and grading process described is a meaningful assessment or classification of how much a student “knows”?
On the lightbulb conspiracy.
Identify and explain the “barriers to rendering social justice visible” evident in documentary on the lightbulb conspiracy.
Can you envision an alternative to planned obsolescence in consumer products?
Do you have a consumer product that has “failed” and you’ve tried to fix it? How long did or do you think the fix will last?
“Environmental Justice requires that all people and communities receive the equal protection of environmental and public health laws, and should have an equal and meaningful voice in decisions related to their environment” (MCRC 2017). In the case of the lightbulb conspiracy, which governments need to act in order to achieve environmental justice? Who needs to accept responsibility and punish wrongdoers? Can you envision this happening? Why or why not?