Available online.
Bruno Belhoste, La Formation d’une technocratie. L’École polytechnique et ses élèves de la Révolution au Second Empire, Paris, Belin, 2003
Marc-Olivier Baruch & Vincent Guigueno (eds), Le choix des X : l’École polytechnique et les polytechniciens 1939-1945, Paris, Fayard, 2000
“Pourquoi et comment un polytechnicien poursuivant une carrière dans l’administration, l’armée ou l’entreprise devient-il un résistant ? Quelles furent à l’inverse les motivations de ceux qui, vantant l’apolitisme de la technique, choisirent de conserver des responsabilités au sein de services de l’État engagées dans la Révolution nationale et la collaboration ?
Les réponses à ces questions se trouvent moins dans une hypothétique identité polytechnicienne que dans l’analyse du parcours des élèves et anciens élèves au sein de quatre groupes : les promotions présentes à l’École pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les ingénieurs des grands corps techniques de l’État, les officiers des armes savantes, enfin les résistants, issus de chacun de ces trois derniers groupes.
Ce livre prolonge des journées d’études animées par l’association X-Résistance. Il rassemble des textes rédigés par des historiens spécialistes de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, des documents inédits et des témoignages d’acteurs de l’époque qui rappellent que, au-delà d’éventuels déterminismes transmis par la formation polytechnicienne, l’engagement fut d’abord un choix individuel.”
B.Belhoste, A.Dahan-Dalmedico, D.Pestre & A.Picon (eds), La France des X. Deux siècles d’histoire, Paris, Economica, 1995
Concordance des temps, Polytechnique: Une caste en démocratie?, 05/05/2012
Working title for the project group: Issues in Engineering Studies
Publisher: Springer
To be published in the Springer series: Philosophy of Engineering & Technology
Responsible editor and project coordinator: Steen Hyldgaard Christensen
Co-editors: Bernard Delahousse, Gary Downey, Andrew Jamison, Martin Meganck, Carl Mitcham
Approach: A combination of the approach used in: Christensen, Steen Hyldgaard, Delahousse, Bernard, Meganck, Martin (eds) (2009). Engineering in Context. Academica, Aarhus and the approach used in Gary Downey and Kasey Beddoe (eds.) (2010). What is Global Engineering For: The Making of International Educators. Morgan & Claypool Publishers.
Length of the volume: 600 pages
Short description of the Springer project: The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of the contexts in which engineering activities are situated within the larger realm of human activities. In dealing with context it immediately becomes clear that context is an inherently dialectical concept, since contextualizing in itself is dependent on definitions of what is perceived to be the relevant boundaries regarding both the education and the practice of engineering. Contextualizing thus unfolds its inherent dialectics in the terrain between what “is” and “ought”. In this way the quest for a re-contextualizing of engineering education and practice put forward in this volume inevitably is a value-laden enterprise and therefore not without a certain degree of controversy. It is concerned with both what engineering “is” and what it “ought” to be. Ultimately a greater awareness and understanding of context should result in better preparation of engineers to render those contexts visible in their work, and consequently enable engineers to contribute to more socially robust and responsible endeavors. Engineering practices have to often been characterized by absence of self-criticism, and liberal arts practices by reverence for isolated critical virtuosity. To burst these boundaries in a collaborative effort is a main purpose of the project. Using ”context” and two simply stated but complex questions “What is engineering for? and, What are engineers for?” as bridges the project sets out to juxtapose important cases of critical participation within engineering with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents.
Provisional structure of the volume containing 30 chapters (600 pages).
Preface
General Introduction
Section 1 (Introduction + 6 chapters): Contextualizing Engineering
Section 2 (Introduction + 6 chapters): Institutional Contexts of Engineering Education
Section 3 (Introduction + 6 chapters): Context in Engineering Curricula
Section 4 (Introduction + 6 chapters): Context in Engineering Design
Section 5 (Introduction + 6 chapters): Ethics and Values in Engineering
Author Biographies
Index
Short description of the main content of the five sections
Section 1: Contextualizing Engineering
The issue of context in engineering is no doubt one of the most central and controversial topics in the studies of engineering and technology. On the one hand, context is an old issue if one views engineering as an activity adapting technical objects and projects to particular material and social conditions. On the other hand, it is a current issue if one considers the context to be at the heart of contemporary philosophical, historical and social reflections upon technology. Whatever the viewpoint, any attempt to characterize engineering as a core activity of the ‘technology-in-society’ must, as far as possible, choose a position on what can be termed ‘the question of context’. Section 1 is thus meant to serve as a philosophical, historical, and social reflection of the various meanings of “Context” in engineering and technology.
Section 2: Institutional Contexts of Engineering Education
Engineering education takes place at different levels, in different types of institutions embedded in different national systems of higher education. Systems of higher education are not stable entities but are exposed to structural change over time due to institutional and structural dynamics. Examples of typical structural dynamics are academic drift in engineering colleges and vocational drift in universities. Such dynamics work to transform educational systems and to blur the boundaries between the different types of institutions. The aim of this section is to investigate the historical record of a number of ideal typical institutions of engineering education in the United States, Europa, and China and the historical transformation they have gone through. As ideal typical cases The United Kingdom, France, Germany and China represent four historical reference models of higher education – the Oxbridge, the Napoleonic, the Humboldtian, and the Marxist. These reference models constitute the historical initial conditions for the shaping of engineering education and the different status and roles attributed to engineers in the four countries. In section 2 these issues will be scrutinized.
Section 3: Context in Engineering Curricula
The importance of incorporating contextual issues and developing socio-technical competencies in engineering education has been widely acknowledged in the engineering education community in Australia, Europe and the United States. High quality engineering design requires understanding of how the engineered artifact interacts with individuals, society, and the environment, both natural and manmade. In the US, the ABET EC 2000 criteria (www.abet.org) for accrediting engineering programs incorporate context in two out of eleven program outcomes (a-k) under criterion 3. The two context-related outcomes to be achieved by first-cycle engineering students are (c) “an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability”, and (h) “the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, and societal context”. In the European EUR-ACE accreditation framework (Document A1-en Final 17 November, 2005), context is incorporated as one outcome out of five under the heading “Transferable Skills”.First-cycle engineering students are expected to “demonstrate awareness of the health, safety and legal issues and responsibilities of engineering practice, the impact of engineering solutions in a societal and environmental context, and commit to professional ethics, responsibilities and norms of engineering practice”. The aim of this section is to investigate whether and if so to what extent, confronted with which obstacles and how socio-technical integration has been tackled and implemented in a number of exemplary engineering education institutions and their curricula.
Section 4: Context in Engineering Design
Engineering design may be seen as the core of engineering. In this section, we will focus on the major structural differences between science and engineering. When embarking on a comparison of science and engineering from a general perspective, the initial problem one faces is: what to compare? It may be argued that, at a general level, scholars of modern technology of whatever philosophical bent they may be seem to agree that technology can be distinguished from science in three closely related areas: 1. Centre and purpose of activity, 2. Normative foundation, 3. Epistemological breadth and complexity. As engineering design is embedded in a larger context – a “social world” – both at a micro, meso and macro level, the design process can be conceived as a social process as well. A complete design is not in the hands of a single individual. To proceed, engineers have to take into consideration legal restrictions and standards, performance requirements set by customers, they have to negotiate with others in the company etc. Different worlds intersect generating work, which is fundamentally social and process. No overriding instrumental strategy is at hand to reconcile and synthesize the diverse design interests. At the beginning of the design process the performance requirements set by the customer is the basis of the layout of performance specifications, but even these requirements are subject to change. It is impossible to uphold these specifications within an ongoing process of modification, clarification, negotiation and joint interpretation. In this way specifications, which seem clear at the outset are challenged by the very design process. The design process is thus a process of discovery to uncover ambiguities, confusions and contradictions. The aim of this section is to scrutinize engineering design methodology, knowledge components and the role of context in the engineering design process ranging from small scale design of technical devices to large scale socio-technical system design.
Section 5: Ethics and Values in Engineering
Project Start: Beginning of May 2012
Duration: 2 years, ending 1 December 2014
Kick-off workshop at MIT 4 and 5 May 2012: a 2 days kick-off workshop will be held Friday 4 and Saturday 5 May 2012 in the Conference room at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge in the United States. This has been arranged by Larry Bucciarelli. STS at MIT has offered to host a reception for our gathering on Friday evening. Wine, beer, cheese and crackers will be supplied by the program. 10 faculty members from within MIT will be invited to attend this event. The purpose of the workshop is:
Workshop expenditures, travel, meals and accommodation: As there would be no project funding all cost are to be funded by participants via their institutions
Project communication, template and standards (including the system of referencing) for the chapters:
Deadlines and milestones:
Target groups:
List of participants:
Byron Newberry, Baylor University, Texas (Byron_Newberry@baylor.edu)
Wayne Ambler, University of Colorado, Boulder (wayne.ambler@colorado.edu)
Jen Schneider, Colorado School of Mines (jen.schneider@mines.edu)
Juan Lucena, Colorado School of Mines (jlucena@mines.edu)
Carl Mitcham, Colorado School of Mines (cmitcham@mines.edu)
Louis L. Bucciarelli, MIT (llbjr@MIT.EDU)
Bruce Seely, Michigan Technological University, United States (bseely@mtu.edu)
Joe Pitt, Virginia Tech (jcpitt@vt.edu)
Matt Wisnioski, Virginia tech (mwisnios@vt.edu)
Gary Downey, Virginia Tech (downeyg@vt.edu)
Michael Dyrenfurth, Purdue University (mdyrenfu@purdue.edu)
Brent Jesiek, Purdue University (bjesiek@purdue.edu)
Erik Fisher, Arizona State University (efisher1@asu.edu)
Joe Herkert, Arizona State University (joseph.herkert@asu.edu)
Javier Cañavate, Technical University of Catalonia, Spain (francisco.javier.canavate@upc.edu)
José Manuel Lis, Technical University of Catalonia, Spain (manuel-jose.lis@upc.edu)
Martin Meganck, KaHo, Sint-Lieven, Belgium (martin.meganck@kahosl.be)
Bernard Delahousse, IUT “A” Lille, France (bdelahousse@free.fr)
Steen Hyldgaard Christensen, Aarhus University, Denmark (steenhc@hih.au.dk)
Michael Evan Goodsite, Aarhus University, Denmark (MichaelG@hih.au.dk)
Matthias Heymann, Aarhus University, Denmark (matthias.heymann@ivs.au.dk)
Anders Buch, Technical University of Denmark (ABU@ida.dk)
Andrew Jamison, Aalborg University, Denmark (andy@plan.aau.dk)
Stig Andur Pedersen, Roskilde University Center (RUC), Denmark (sap@ruc.dk)
Fernand Doridot, ICAM Lille, France (doridot (fernand.doridot@icam.fr)
Sylvain Lavelle, ICAM Lille, France (sylvain.lavelle@icam.fr)
Christelle Didier, The Catholic University of Lille, France (ChristelleD@icl-lille.fr)
Peter Kroes, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands (P.A.Kroes@tudelft.nl)
Pieter Vermaas, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands (P.E.Vermaas@tudelft.nl)
Wilhelm Bomke, Fachhochschule Regensburg, Germany (auslandsamt@fh-regensburg.de)
Mike Murphy, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland (mike.murphy@dit.ie)
William (Bill) Grimson, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland (william.grimson@dit.ie)
Li Bocong, The Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (libocong@gucas.ac.cn)
Additional authors:
If needed additional authors may be invited after the workshop in May 2012 at MIT.
Peter Meiksins and Chris Smith (eds), Engineering labour. Technical workers in comparative perspective. London, New-York: Verso, 1996.
Review by Charles Gadéa
This collective book is based on six case studies of engineers in Britain, Germany, France, USA, Sweden and Japan. It shows the importance of national differences in the training and the organization of engineering labour. In the two last chapters, Peter Meiksins and Chris Smith address the common issues that emerge from the case studies. They consider that the engineers play an ambiguous role within the enterprise as intermediate workers, engaging in complex and contradictory relationships with both employers and manual workers. These tensions, combined with local specificities, explain national configurations. Yet, at the same time, the authors stress that “there is not an infinite variety of ways of producing engineers. ”
“We know that there are underlying structural realities, but their effects are mediated in complex ways. We know institutional formation varies, but not infinitely. We know that the agencies involved in formation – the state, capital, labour, occupational associations- are common to all the societies, yet organized differently.” (p. 236)
Thus, the main question is how can we synthesize these variations into a limited number of models. According to Meiksins and Smith there are four main models which describe the ways of producing engineering workforce and define the social position of engineers. The first model is the craft model, in which engineers and technical workers are skilled workers at the top of the hierarchy of industrial workers: “the ‘engineer’ is constituted not by the possession of credentials, but by the laborious acquisition of practical experience” (p. 238). The second one, the managerial model, defines engineers as part of the managerial people and quite often they are trained in formal educational institutions that teach universal skills that can be easily transferred and adapted to different situations. In the third case, the “estate organization” is characterized by a stratified hierarchy of technical occupations, with formal school trained and rather elitist professionals on the one hand, but also a variety of other technical workers with claims to be recognized as engineers, on the other hand. The fourth and last model, the “company centred” model, is degree-based; the engineers are trained at the university, but the new staff are recruited by and promoted into the company; people are encouraged to show a sense of solidarity with the firm viewed as a whole rather than develop strong occupational identities and professional associations.
André Grelon, A.Karvar, I.Gouzevitch, La formation des ingénieurs en perspective. Modèles de référence et réseaux de médiation, XVIIIe-XX siècles, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2004
« L’institutionnalisation de la formation et de la pratique des ingénieurs est un processus historique de grande ampleur qui se développe parallèlement aux grandes vagues d’industrialisation en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, dès la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Elle ne cesse de s’étendre à tous les pays; elle est encore à l’œuvre aujourd’hui. Elle est souvent en corrélation avec la diffusion des “modèles” d’enseignement technique. Réunissant des contributions de chercheurs et d’universitaires venus du monde entier, le présent ouvrage offre un aperçu original des recherches comparatives sur le transfert des “modèles” d’enseignement pour ingénieurs entre différentes aires culturelles. Les articles rassemblés en trois parties – institutionnalisation de l’enseignement, médiation des acteurs et polysémie du concept de ” modèle ” – traitent des déterminants techniques et culturels, des stratégies d’expansion et des choix politiques comme des mécanismes complexes d’acculturation dans un environnement local. »
Catherine Marry, Les femmes ingénieures. Une révolution silencieuse, Paris, Éditions Belin, 2004
« Depuis les années 1920, les femmes affirment leur présence dans le monde masculin des ingénieurs. Ce livre retrace les moments et les lieux, les avancées et les butoirs, les ressorts subjectifs et sociaux de cette transgression des places et destins féminins. Il s’agit d’une révolution respectueuse, mais c’est le premier de ces deux termes paradoxaux qui est le plus exploré ici. Comme ailleurs, l’hégémonie masculine perdure dans les hautes sphères, mais la présence de mieux en mieux acceptée des femmes ingénieurs s’inscrit dans une dynamique d’égalité entre les sexes. »
Catherine Marry est sociologue, directrice de recherche au CNRS (Lasmas, Paris). Elle participe à la direction du Groupement de recherche européen MAGE (Marché du travail et genre). Parmi ses publications récentes : Laufer Jacqueline, Marry Catherine, Maruani Margaret (dir.), Le travail du genre, Paris, La Découverte, 2003 ; Laufer Jacqueline, Marry Catherine, Maruani Margaret (dir.), Masculin-féminin, Questions pour les sciences de l’homme, Paris, Puf, 2001.
Christelle Didier, Les ingénieurs et l’éthique : pour un regard sociologique, London, Hermes, 2008
« L’éthique est devenue un grand sujet de préoccupation dans de nombreux secteurs tels que la médecine, l’économie, le journalisme, le travail social mais aussi celui des sciences et des techniques. Les ingénieurs et l’éthique s’interroge sur les valeurs et l’identité d’une profession en prise avec d’importantes questions actuelles comme la pollution, les risques techniques et les inégalités sociales. Présentant les résultats d’une enquête sociologique réalisée sur près de 4 000 diplômés français, ce livre permet de mieux cerner le regard que portent les ingénieurs sur les sciences, les techniques et la société. Cet ouvrage offre une meilleure connaissance de l’univers des représentations d’un groupe social en pleine mutation. »
Christelle Didier, Penser l’éthique des ingénieurs, Paris, PUF, “Questions d’éthique”, 2008
« Cet ouvrage propose des pistes pour interroger les enjeux éthiques de la technique à partir de l’un de ses principaux acteurs, l’ingénieur. Aux professionnels, il propose une réflexion sur leurs responsabilités individuelles et collectives. A ceux qui les forment, il indique des éléments pour aborder ces questions en cours. Aux spécialistes en sciences humaines et sociales, il dévoile un pan méconnu des recherches protant sur les professions techniques. Il offre à tous la possibilité de mieux connaître certains aspects de notre monde technique à travers celles et ceux qui y contribuent. »
About the Author
Christelle Didier is Associate Professor in the Ethics Department of the Lille Catholic University and Head of Engineering Ethics. She co-authored Éthique industrielle (Bruxelles, 1998) and contributes to the European Journal of Engineering Education
Engineer or Engineers: Expansion or Fragmentation?International conference : Un Ingénieur, des ingénieurs. Expansion ou fragmentation? Paris, October 6-7, 2011, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales with the collaboration of Ingénieurs sans frontières
Abstract
Given the increasing visibility of Indian engineers in the global high-tech workforce in recent years, this paper inquires into the various conditions that support their transnational mobilities. I argue that Indian technomigration is shaped through the complex articulations of many different factors – middle class imaginations of successful careers and affluent lifestyles, immigration laws, considerations of family, and discourses of a “Global Indian” cosmopolitanism – being some of the most salient ones.
In particular, I argue that Indian technomigrants become transnationally mobile by assuming cosmopolitan “Global Indian” subjectivities – an identity construct that allows them to position themselves as global citizens who are nonetheless Indian at their core. For Indian technomigrants, “Global Indianness” is configured as the space between the binary opposition of a materialist “West” (United States) and a spiritual “India,” and is actualized through everyday practices such as those of education, employment, hospitality, and consumption. As a discursive construct, global Indianness, then, enacts a double movement – it serves to redefine engineering and allied technical professions as being Indian, while simultaneously making Indians “global”.
Based on this empirical analysis, I make four conceptual interventions. First, I foreground ways in which professional and non-professional (“technical” and “non-technical”) aspects of engineering practice are inextricably intertwined, and how these are in turn situated in local and global historical, cultural and political-economic conditions. Indian engineers, for example, prominently foreground their frustrations with a corrupt state bureaucratic machinery as key rationales for migrating to the United States and elsewhere. Such frustrations in turn shape how these engineers come to conceive of their personal and professional responsibilities, thus linking local histories to the formation of professional identities. Second, then, I draw attention to ways in which Indian engineering is constituted transnationally – seeking education and employment overseas has historically figured as an important consideration for Indian engineers, and shapes their personal and professional imaginaries in significant ways. Third, I argue for continued attention to engineers as key cultural figures. In postcolonial contexts such as those of India, especially, engineers have historically signified the promise of middle class respectability and livelihoods. Understanding engineering subjectivities, then, becomes a particularly productive window into understanding key cultural logics, as well as emerging sociocultural shifts. Lastly, I argue for continued synergies between scholarship on Engineering Studies and the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). As Engineering Studies defines itself as an autonomous area of inquiry, I suggest that it can meaningfully revitalize a focus on subject-formation among technoscientific experts writ large within STS.
This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted among Indian technomigrants – Indian engineering students and early career professionals who have migrated to the United States for education and employment-related purposes. Data for this research was collected through
This preliminary presentation is part of an international research programme: The Making of Indian Engineers, supported by the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, which brings together Indian and European scholars.
According to the AICTE the number of engineering colleges in India has increased fourfold in the last ten years – from 780 colleges registered in the year 2000 to more than 3000 colleges in 2010. The number of BEngg or BTech degrees currently delivered is estimated at 350 000 per year.
However, this growth is quite unbalanced. Firstly, 60% of the seats are concentrated in the four southern states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) and Maharashtra. Secondly, 73% of the seats are concentrated in five disciplines of the Information Technology (IT) only: Electronics and Communications; Computer Science; Information Technology; Electronics and Electrical; Electronics and Telecommunications.
Furthermore, engineering education is de facto privatised as 92% of the colleges are private (including few private government aided colleges) and 8% public institutions. But among these public institutions stand the most prestigious engineering colleges the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Institutes of Technology and other institutions of similar ranking.
This presentation raises a few issues. Can we consider engineering education as a scholarly market? Who are the stakeholders involved in this market? How is the competition between colleges organized? What are their catchment areas? What are the mechanisms of regulation and control of this market? What is the role of the judiciary in the field of higher professional education? How do the colleges orient their action in this market, and how can we differentiate between these colleges? How is the social diversity organized in order to benefit all the groups of the Indian society? What is the rationale behind the working of these colleges – both inside and outside the institution? These are some of the issues that we will discuss in order to frame a survey that we intend to conduct as part of the programme The Making of Indian Engineers.
Odile Henry also contributed a paper titled: De l’ordre des ingénieurs à l’ordre des ingénieurs-conseils, de la récurrence d’un idéal professionnel (1922-1954).
Amy E. Slaton, Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization of American Building, 1900-1930, John Hopkins University Press, 2001.
“Examining the proliferation of reinforced-concrete construction in the United States after 1900, historian Amy E. Slaton considers how scientific approaches and occupations displaced traditionally skilled labor. The technology of concrete buildings little studied by historians of engineering, architecture, or industry offers a remarkable case study in the modernization of American production.
The use of concrete brought to construction the new procedures and priorities of mass production. These included a comprehensive application of science to commercial enterprise and vast redistributions of skills, opportunities, credit, and risk in the workplace. Reinforced concrete also changed the American landscape as building buyers embraced the architectural uniformity and simplicity to which the technology was best suited.
Based on a wealth of data that includes university curricula, laboratory and company records, organizational proceedings, blueprints, and promotional materials as well as a rich body of physical evidence such as tools, instruments, building materials, and surviving reinforced-concrete buildings, this book tests the thesis that modern mass production in the United States came about not simply in answer to manufacturers’ search for profits, but as a result of a complex of occupational and cultural agendas.”
Amy E. Slaton, Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in US Engineering. The History of an Occupational Color Line, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010.
“Despite the educational and professional advances made by minorities in recent decades, African Americans remain woefully underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering. Even at its peak, in 2000, African American representation in engineering careers reached only 5.7 percent, while blacks made up 15 percent of the U.S. population. Some forty-five years after the Civil Rights Act sought to eliminate racial differences in education and employment, what do we make of an occupational pattern that perpetually follows the lines of race?
Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in U.S. Engineering pursues this question and its ramifications through historical case studies. Focusing on engineering programs in three settings—in Maryland, Illinois, and Texas, from the 1940s through the 1990s—Amy E. Slaton examines efforts to expand black opportunities in engineering as well as obstacles to those reforms. Her study reveals aspects of admissions criteria and curricular emphases that work against proportionate black involvement in many engineering programs. Slaton exposes the negative impact of conservative ideologies in engineering, and of specific institutional processes—ideas and practices that are as limiting for the field of engineering as they are for the goal of greater racial parity in the profession.”
A preliminary workshop on The Making of Indian Engineers project was held at India Habitat Centre, Delhi, on 21st-22nd February 2011, under the auspices of the Centre de Sciences Humaines. Nineteen scholars from both India and abroad attended the workshop (IIIT-Bangalore, IIIM Gwalior, IIT-Chennai, IIT-Mumbai, IIT-Delhi, Delhi Technological University, MIDS Chennai, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Delhi, Centre for the Study of Developing Society, Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, Institut d’administration des entreprises, Paris, University of Paris-Dauphine, University of Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, and Fondation Thiers, Paris). The workshop was organized as a brain-storming session on the history and sociology of the engineering professions in India. Three broad areas of research were covered: first, the history of the profession under the colonial regime and the development of engineering education since Independence; second, the sociology of Engineering Colleges and their student population (social mobility, choice of profession, professional expectations, etc.); third, engineers as professionals (definitions of the groups, workplace, careers, political and civic engagement, ways of life, etc.). The main aim of the workshop was to prepare a collective research proposal to be submitted to the Indian European Network Research Programme and the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche for funding.
