Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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representation and their relationship to reality should be studied in depth when studying
attractiveness.
To sum-up, we recommend to study various paths to become engineers and to consider
the non-linear ones because they are more and more common among students.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, crossing interdisciplinarity and engineering, studying how engineering
curriculum is changing, leads to question the identity of the next century engineers.
On one hand we can regret that science and technology are at risk to be downgraded as
second role disciplines because they are too “hard” and not “attractive” anymore — which
is paradoxical when, at the same time, we desperately want good science and technology
specialists to sustain our scientific and economic development.
On the other hand, we can re-think engineers not only as Science & Technology specialists
but as post-modern “honnêtes hommes”, in French, or “Renaissance men”, in English:
people who are able to deal with technical problems embedded in the social and
economical context they belong to. This new identity would corresponds to the “mode 2”
production of knowledge we experience now.
Our role is now to study accurately the construction and the impact of pluridisciplinary or
transdisciplinary curricula. A deep reflexion on disciplines, on curriculum building
including pedagogical issues and curriculum coherence, and on meaningful comparisons
across Europe would be crucial to build such curricula. HELENA project was a starting
point and emphasized the issues we must investigate.
References
Abbott, A. (2001). Chaos of Disciplines (New edition.). University of Chicago Press.
Didier, C. (2008). Penser l’éthique des ingénieurs. Presses Universitaires de France - PUF.
Frandji, D., & Vitale, P. (2010). Knowledge, Pedagogy and Society: International Perspectives
on Basil Bernstein’s Sociology of Education (1st ed.). Routledge.
Giré, A., Béraud, A., & Dechamps, P. (2000). Les ingénieurs. Identités en
questions.L’Harmattan.
Grelon, A., Gouzevitch, I., & Karvar, A. (2004). La formation des ingénieurs en perspective :
Modèles de référence et réseaux de médiation XVIIIe - XXe siècle. PU Rennes.
Interdisciplinary Studies Project. Project Zero. (2005) Harvard Graduate School of
Education. Accessed at http://www.pz.harvard.edu/interdisciplinary/index.html
on July 18 2011.
Kourilsky, F., & Tellez, J. (2003). Ingénierie de l’interdisciplinarité. Un nouvel esprit
scientifique. Editions L’Harmattan.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011