Which 'culture'? A critical analysis of intercultural communication in engineering education

Background It is increasingly acknowledged that technical expertise is not sufficient for engineers today, given the complex intercultural global contexts in which they are required to work. This article, therefore, examines how the concept of culture is typically operationalized in engineering education and discusses possible reasons for this approach. Purpose/Hypothesis The specific research question explored here is “How is culture conceptualized in engineering education?” Design/Method To examine this previously unasked question, a mixed‐methods methodology was developed, one that uses both quantitative and qualitative tools. More specifically, a corpus‐assisted discourse analysis of relevant engineering education articles published in leading academic journals between 2000 and 2015 was combined with a close reading of each and a critical discussion of two representative articles. Results Our findings reveal that, first, intercultural communication has not received the attention it deserves, given the multidisciplinary, diverse, global nature of the engineering profession. Furthermore, when intercultural concerns are discussed, the predominant approach is essentialist, meaning that culture is regarded as given (rather than constructed), framed in terms of differences between nations and potentially offering a causal explanation for individual behavior. This approach has been criticized for reinforcing stereotypical thinking and offering simplistic answers to complex problems. Conclusions We conclude by exploring reasons for the relatively wide‐spread acceptance of the “culture‐as‐given” approach in engineering education, then by urging educators to adopt a “small culture” approach for constructing culture in engineering, and finally by suggesting alternative ways for developing intercultural communicative competence

Evaluating the impact of a facilitated learning community approach to professional development on teacher practice and student achievement

The focus of this research was an evaluation of the impact of teacher professional development (PD) on student achievement during implementation of a reform curriculum. The PD consisted of five four-hour workshop sessions distributed over the time teachers were implementing the reform curriculum in their classrooms. The research was conducted in a mid-size, urban school district over the span of two years. Three groups of teachers were contrasted: teachers who continued to use the established curriculum (N = 5), teachers who implemented the reform curriculum without participating in the PD sessions (N = 5), and teachers who implemented the reform curriculum while participating in the PD sessions (N = 13). Teachers who participated in the PD had approximately a one standard deviation advantage in their students' achievement over those who did not. We collected evidence of particular features of the PD that explained the differences in student achievement. The features included: distributing the workshops throughout the implementation; engaging teachers in an active learning process situated in the curriculum; and facilitating a collaborative community of teacher professionals. This study led us to believe that not only are the individual features of the PD important, but the combination of all three together is particularly powerful