The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer:
Between Paradigms of Technocracy and Democracy
by
YURI A. ALEXEICHENKO
WORKING PAPERS
Centre for Comparative Labour Studies
Department of Sociology
University of Warwick
COVENTRY CV4 7AL
Number 1
August 1995
£3.00
ISSN 1360-2020
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE i
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ii
INTRODUCTION
3
CHAPTER 1
6
ANALYSING THE NATURE OF ENGINEERING: IS THE TECHNOCRATIC PARADIGM INEVITABLE?
CHAPTER 2
11
TECHNOCRATIC TENDENCIES IN PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION AND SOCIALISATION:
DIFFERENT PATTERNS, SIMILAR OUTCOMES?
CONCLUSION
22
REFERENCES
22
APPENDIX A
24
APPENDIX B
27
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE ii
Abstract
The paper examines the process of becoming a professional engineer in different countries against a backdrop of the
global socio-technological, cultural and environmental contradictions of the modern age. The comparative focus of the
paper is Britain and Belarus. It is suggested that the technocratic paradigm of professional mentality and culture which
until quite recently used to be characteristic of most efficient engineers nowadays becomes increasingly incompatible
with the progress of national economies and human civilization in general. The argumentation is developed to stress the
urgent need for democratically-minded technical workers with a more rounded, interdisciplinary approach and integrated
vision of technology-practice.
On the basis of original research evidence and published materials from analogous studies the roots and reasons for an
apparent technocratic bias in engineering students’ consciousness are analysed. They are seen to be linked to the nature
of the occupation, which appears to be similar across industrialised countries, and to the patterns of professional
education and socialisation which are quite specific in diverse national contexts. These peculiarities in the formation of
technical workers, determined by the historical differences in the timing and character of industrialisation, are argued to
produce distinct Western and Soviet sub-types of technocracy. Both of them, however, equally hinder the process of
democratisation in the engineering profession.
The possibilities, preconditions and principles of reforms in technical education and training aimed to achieve the
required shift of paradigms in the professional mentality of future engineers are discussed.
Acknowledgements
This dissertation could not have been completed without help and support of many people. I am deeply grateful to Rob
Flynn (Department of Sociology) and Chris March (Faculty of Engineering) from the University of Salford who heavily
contributed to my research project by realising all the field work there. To Prof J.Flower and Prof D.Whitehouse at the
Department of Engineering, University of Warwick I owe particular thanks for giving me access and creating a
favourable atmosphere which made my interviews with their students a pleasure.
I would like to express special gratitude to Simon Clarke for his liberal and friendly style of supervision which has
encouraged me and helped to activate my own analytical capabilities. I owe a great deal indeed to Richard Lampard who
significantly assisted me in coping with the quantitative side of the research. Special thanks are due to Peter Fairbrother,
Tony Elger, Ian Procter and other colleagues at the University of Warwick who helped me to keep my mind open.
Yuri Alexeichenko
The Author
Yuri Alexeichenko was born in Gomel, Belarus, in 1965. He graduated from Gomel State University with a degree in
History and Social Sciences in 1987. From 1987-90 he taught in the Department of Political History and Politology of the
Gomel Polytechnical Institute. Since 1990 he has been a postgraduate student in the Institute of Sociology of the
Belarusian Academy of Sciences. He attended the ESRC/British Council/Soros Summer School for Soviet Sociologists at
the University of Manchester in 1991, and spent the academic year 1993-4 in the Sociology Department at Warwick,
where he held a British Council Scholarship, graduating with an MA in Sociology with distinction. In addition to his
work on the professional training of engineers, Yuri has published on the consequences of Chernobyl, which is close to
his home city of Gomel. Yuri is curently working as a freelance sociologist in Belarus. He can be contacted at Ul.
Golovatskogo 21-60,
Gomel 246028 Belarus, telephone (7) 0232-572541.
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 3
Introduction
This dissertation presents some outcomes of a
research project devoted to the problems of the
professional formation of future engineers within
systems of higher technical education in Belarus and
England, which I started in 1991. Since that time my
sociological world-view and, consequently, the
methodology of collecting, analysing and interpreting
data have undergone a quite deep and painful evolution:
the erosion of a positivist image of sociological
knowledge has been followed by an obsession with a
spirit of radical doubt over the adequacy and validity of
any information about individual and society obtained
by whatever methods. Indeed it is difficult to say at the
moment whether this process has come to an end and
equally to characterise my current research outlook
more precisely and in more detail than by the single
word ‘pluralism`.
This factor has shaped the mode of theoretical
argumentation and the ways of presenting and analysing
empirical materials employed in the dissertation which
one might consider as too patchy, variegated and
lacking articulated adherence to any particular
sociological tradition. The other characteristic feature of
the text is that it tends to provide more questions than
answers, more hypotheses and presuppositions than
theories or solid conclusions.
The latter stems not only from the peculiarities of the
research approach but also from the nature of the
research problem. The process of becoming
professional (either in engineering or in any other
occupation), the emergence and development of one’s
professional mentality with the particular pattern of
occupational values, norms, and preferences tending to
define the professional and even the life path of an
individual was never an easy subject to study.
Firstly, the researcher has to deal with the quite
delicate inner sphere of human abilities, inclinations,
interests and choices which are often not clearly
understood even by their possessor. Secondly, because
professional socialisation as an interaction between the
unique inner world of a person and a range of socioprofessional institutions and factors (which are quite
specific in different societies) occurs in a fairly
individual manner and, therefore, requires considerable
discretion in making broad generalisations or universal
conclusions in this area.
However, despite the problems and limitations
involved one can hardly deny the importance of studies
devoted to the formation of professional consciousness
and culture of different occupational groups under
contemporary conditions of global technological, socioeconomic, geopolitical and ecological transformations
and challenges. Profound research seems to be
particularly essential in the case of such professional
strata as engineers and scientists who play a very
significant role in any modern society and who are able
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
substantially to influence the future development of
their countries and of human civilization in general.
There is a vast range of arguments to prove the key
role of engineering and science in modern life. We can
look at the situation from the point of view of the
Warwick University engineering undergraduates who
argue mainly on the basis of common-sense and day-today experience that:
“Engineering has basically a critical role in
society today… In the world around us there’s a
very few things we can actually think of that has
not come from an engineering process… Society
now is basically engineered…”(2nd year electric
and manufacturing systems engineering
students)
We can draw upon the historical argumentation of
Glover and Kelly who state that human beings are
engineers by definition. From early ages onwards man
is homo faber, the maker and doer, and it is no accident
that historical epochs or periods are named after
materials, artefacts or energy sources e.g. the Bronze
Age, the Computer Age, the Atomic Age (Glover &
Kelly 1987: 20-22).
Or we can enter the highly abstract domain of a
distinguished social theorist who finds the scientist,
technician and engineer among the figures central to the
expert systems which are one of the most essential
characteristics of the late modern age (Giddens 1991:
18-21).
Further argumentation on the issue, involving both a
more detailed analysis of engineering’s impact on the
contemporary process of technological change and
socio-economic globalisation and a review of the
position and role of technical workers in the former
USSR, can be found in my paper ‘Training of Engineers
under
Economic
Restructuring
and
Work
Transformation: A Comparative Analysis`. This essay
also stresses the centrality of engineering work and of
the employees who carry it out, in the social landscape
of industrialised societies.
To recognise this does not mean accepting the
predictions of ‘post-industrial` theorists about the
replacement of the old power elite by the newly
powerful stratum of scientific and technical experts who
will establish the rule of pure rationality and impartial
calculations all over the world. One could hardly
disagree with the heavy but justified criticism imposed
on such theoretical constructions by different authors
(see, for instance: Giddens 1973: 255–64; Whalley
1986: 1–11; Glover 1992 etc.). None of these critics,
however, deny the evident tendency of growth in the
number and influence of high tech industries and
technical experts, which seems to have become
universal across the community of industrialised
countries during recent decades. And this is the point
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The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
which makes apparent the importance of the present
paper’s research concern.
It seeks to go beyond quite well-elaborated issues of
the class position of technical workers in different
societies (Perrucci 1973; Whalley 1986; Lane 1989;
Smith 1990; Lee & Smith 1992; Meiksins & Smith
1993b) because it is not very significant for my analysis
whether engineers are able to become a new power elite
or whether they will remain ‘servants of power`,
whether they become the new service class of ‘trusted
employees`, or the new working class etc. What really
matters is the rapidly increasing impact of their
professional performance and mentality on the life of
society in broad terms. The way of thinking, the logic of
decision-making, the system of values and preferences
of a person educated and socialised as a professional
engineer become nowadays more and more important
for the fate of separate countries and humankind in
general. This applies, regardless of whether the
technical worker acts in a ‘normal` way as an
engineering expert, or performs a managerial job, or is
found at the top of a political hierarchy.
In this context the crucial problem is that the
technocratic orientation of consciousness implying the
single-minded pursuit of narrowly defined technical
goals and the application of strictly engineering reason
to the solution of the emergent problems (professional
‘tunnel vision`) which was and is characteristic of the
vast majority of efficient engineers no longer suffices to
deal with the global socio-technological challenges of
the modern age. Moreover, the growing domination of
technocracy as ‘a pervading ethos, a world-view which
subsumes aesthetics, religion and customary thought to
the rationalist mode`, which tends to neglect sociocultural and moral aspects of human activities and to
regard human beings themselves ‘as nothing more than
“means” to the achievement of technical imperatives` is
seen as a very dangerous tendency both in the West and
the East (Giddens 1973: 258-59; Krylova 1990: 32-33).
All in all, this necessitates the replacement of the
current technocratic paradigm of engineering
mentality and professional culture, organised around
one master value (usually technical excellence), by a
democratic paradigm that presupposes a balance
between different values: technical efficiency, market
competitiveness, users’ needs, cultural and aesthetic
appropriateness etc. and also related professional, socionormative and communicative skills. It is this integrated
vision of technology-practice that should condition
engineering activities and decision-making in the late
modern age.
How far are the future engineers aware of this societal
need for the changing of paradigms? Does this process
of change really occur at the level of modern
engineering education and training in different
countries? What factors tend to perpetuate the
technocratic paradigm and what is it necessary (and
possible) to do to break up this paradigm?
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
PAGE 4
These are the main questions which my paper seeks to
answer. As already mentioned, the research
methodology employed in the work presents an
outcome of the evolution which my originally MarxistLeninist approach has undergone as a result of my
encounter and acquaintance with the Western, and
particularly British, sociological tradition. Having been
gradually disillusioned in Soviet — predominantly
quantitative — understanding and ways of studying the
problems in question (their critical analysis can be
found in my paper ‘How I Studied the Education and
Training of Engineering Undergraduates within a
Framework of Marxist-Leninist Methodology`) I tried
to use in my subsequent work the most popular Western
— predominantly qualitative — research and analytical
tools.
In this context my methodology owes much to such
traits of the best British sociological studies as: the
close interrelation between theoretical and empirical
levels of analysis; the investigation of individual
behaviour within a framework of power relations, class
and group interests; well-developed historical and
institutional approaches etc.
On the other hand, I was not completely satisfied with
the overwhelming domination of qualitative methods
which is characteristic of most Western sociological
studies in the area of my interests. Being quite opposite
to the Soviet writings that present respondents as
numbers without a face, as anonymous bearers of
certain values and qualities (a sort of ‘sociological`
technocracy), Western publications from my point of
view leave too much room for subjectivity and
voluntarism in their interpretation of rich, flexible, and
undoubtedly individualised data. As a consequence,
many sociological texts sometimes resemble a good
piece of journalistic work rather than studies in social
sciences. The other problem which, to my mind, lacks
satisfactory solution within a framework of qualitative
methods is the degree of representativeness of
interviews, case-studies, and similar sources of
information.
How far is it correct to base conclusions and
generalisations about the whole social structure upon
data, which, however rich and deep, are merely
received from a single organisation and/or from a
significantly small (in comparison with surveys)
number of respondents who form a tiny part of the
studied structure? How can one be sure that the
informants randomly selected for interviewing are
typical enough to represent the population of interest
when they themselves sometimes find this difficult to
define? What can guarantee that the respondents are
frank enough in their answers and that there is not any
influence of an interviewer on them? These and other
related questions still remain unanswered for me.
Thus, having recognised a range of significant
advantages intrinsic to qualitative methods, I
nevertheless came to the conclusion that qualitative
methodology cannot be an exclusive road for the
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The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
development of my research. If this sociological study
aims to discuss the problems of democratisation and
humanitarian enrichment in engineering education and
socialisation then it appears to be incompatible with the
monopoly of any single methodology which would tend
to impoverish the social sciences both theoretically and
empirically.
My sympathy is on the side of those scholars who like
Huby and Dix tried to bridge the old-established gap
between quantitative and qualitative research methods,
to design such strategies of studying complex social
phenomena ‘in which different methodologies played
appropriate roles` (1992: 179).
It is this understanding of democracy in research
approaches and methods that I am trying to employ as a
key methodological principle in my dissertation and I
hope that this attempt is not completely fruitless.
The empirical basis of my work is constituted from
data of both quantitative and qualitative character. The
original quantitative materials were collected during
two case studies of the higher engineering education
institutions in Belarus (Gomel Polytechnic Institute:
academic year 1990/91) and England (Faculty of
Engineering, University of Salford: academic year
1991/92) by means of questionnaire surveys of the fulltime final year undergraduates (Nbel= 200; Neng= 70)
and members of the teaching staff (Nbel= 60; Neng=
1
17).
1
The other main characteristics of the survey
samples are:
Undergraduates.
Sex: male - 53.5%, female - 46.5% (Belarus); male 84.3%, female - 15.7% (England). Age: 18-21 years
old - 28%, 22-24 years old - 58%, 25 and older - 14%
(Belarus); 18-21 years old - 24.3%, 22-24 years old 62.9%, 25 and older - 12.9% (England).
Specialisation: technology of pressure processing 10%, technology of industrial moulding - 14.5%,
economics and management of mechanical engineering
- 11.5%, electrical engineering and industrial
electronics - 29.5%, mechanical engineering - 27.5%,
design of aerial and location systems - 7.0% (Belarus);
civil engineering - 47.1%, mechanical engineering 32.9%, electronic and electrical engineering - 20.0%
(England). Marital status: single - 55.5%, divorced 1.0%, married - 43.5% (Belarus); single - 95.7%,
married - 4.3% (England).
Teaching staff.
Sex: male - 80.0%, female - 20.0% (Belarus); male 94.1%, female - 5.9% (England). Amount of years in
teaching career: under 10 years - 36.6%, 10-20 years 40.0%, 20 and more - 23.3% (Belarus); under 10 years
- 29.4%, 10-20 years - 41.2%, 20 and more - 29.4%
(England). Specialisation: technology of pressure
processing - 10%, technology of industrial moulding 23.3%, economics and management of mechanical
engineering - 15.0%, electrical engineering and
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
PAGE 5
The qualitative insights are provided by data obtained
from the collective/group interviewing of second and
third year undergraduates (3 males and 1 female) in
electrical and manufacturing systems engineering at the
University of Warwick, academic year 1993/94.
I am quite aware that my original data set, due to its
restricted size and the limitations related to research
design, validity and sampling which were scrutinized in
my paper ‘Some Problems of Quantitative Comparative
Research: From the Experience of Surveying
Engineering Undergraduates in Belarus and England`,
is not sufficient to form the base for the whole
argumentation. That is why research evidence from my
surveys and interviews is used more to illustrate rather
than to prove my theoretical concepts, which are
informed by a much broader analytical context. The
latter consists of my own experience of teaching
engineering undergraduates, meeting and talking to
engineering educators and practical workers in Belarus
and Great Britain, combined with empirical data and
conceptual elements derived from similar studies in
various countries. All in all, these enable me to proceed
in search of the answers to the above-mentioned main
research questions of this paper.
The first chapter contains an insight into the nature of
the engineering profession, which is analysed as a
source of technocratic bias in the consciousness of
technical students in different countries. The
undergraduates’ awareness of the contemporary skill
requirements of engineering experts, and the way in
which these new socio-occupational demands affect the
professional formation of future engineers, are
considered there as well.
The second chapter deals with nationally and
culturally specific aspects of engineering education and
training (EET) in different countries (with the
predominant emphasis on comparison between England
and Belarus) to reveal how those institutional
peculiarities influence the technocratic bias of
undergraduates’ consciousness. In this context I try to
distinguish Soviet and Western types of technocracy.
Finally, the concluding part discusses the possibilities
of reforms and improvements in EET systems aimed to
achieve the required shift of paradigms in the
professional mentality and culture of technical workers.
industrial electronics - 21.7%, mechanical engineering
- 23.3%, design of aerial and locations systems - 6.7%
(Belarus); civil engineering - 35.3%, mechanical
engineering - 41.2%, electronic and electrical
engineering - 23.5% (England). Marital status: single 3.3%, divorced - 3.3%, married - 93.3% (Belarus);
single - 17.6%, married - 82.4% (England).
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 6
Chapter 1
Analysing the nature of engineering: is the technocratic paradigm
inevitable?
Alongside the developed discussion of significant
diversities in the social organisation of technical work
and the status of being an engineer in different countries
(Yadov 1977; Whalley 1986; Lane 1989; Lawrence
1992; McCormick 1992; Meiksins & Smith 1993a,
1993b) there is always a general recognition of
similarities in the nature and functions of engineering
labour across industrialised economies.
In broad context engineers are assumed ‘to be
technical experts, the translators of industrial design
practice, the masters of production control and
surveillance’ (Lee & Smith 1992: 2). According to a
more detailed (Soviet style) definition their functions
encompass ‘creative use of scientific knowledge;
designing and building of industrial enterprises,
machinery and equipment; development or application
of production methods based on the systematic use of
different tools, or the design and application of these
tools grounded upon firm knowledge of the principles
involved in their work’ (Tushko & Khaskelevich 1971:
35). Basically the same characteristics are echoed in the
other literature on the issue published either in the West
or in the East (Cotgrove & Box 1970; Finniston 1980;
Glover & Kelly 1987; Kugel & Nikandrov 1971;
Chugunova 1986; Shepetko 1988).
The majority of writers are unanimous in defining
engineering through its relations to the theoretical body
of scientific knowledge and practical needs of industry
and society. The nature of these relations and, therefore,
of the profession in general appears to be universal and
can be quite exactly characterised by the words of the
engineering undergraduate who argued:
“Engineering to me always seemed to be a mode
of binding the practical elements of science
together in a way that pure subjects like maths
and physics don’t because they tend to
concentrate on theoretical aspects. From that
point of view engineering is an absolute real life
kind of subject which is directly applicable to
what’s going on in reality” (2nd year
undergraduate in manufacturing systems
engineering, University of Warwick).
The main peculiarity of technical work as well as the
chief feature of its distinction from pure science are
explicitly grasped here. Engineering is an application of
scientific principles and laws in search of practical
solutions to real life problems. However, to use
knowledge is not the same as to create it and this is the
main criterion to draw the difference between scientific
and technical jobs. For unlike pure science oriented on
the production of theoretical knowledge ‘engineering is
about making things’ (Whalley 1986: 57).
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
From the outset of the profession in the modern world
to make technically efficient things and to keep them
working efficiently were the main responsibilities of an
engineer. To meet them technical workers have required
a certain amount of theoretical knowledge in
mechanics, physics and mathematics which explain the
scientific principles of design and maintenance. The
more complicated technical equipment and machinery
become in the course of technological change, the
deeper the knowledge of the relevant scientific
disciplines that is necessary for engineers. One can
argue that being essentially different from science,
engineering nowadays is increasingly dependent on the
use of scientific knowledge and research results.
Such a close connection with the principles and laws
of ‘precise’ sciences which are organised in a strictly
rational, logically consistent and systematic way has
had a strong impact on the professional mentality and
world outlook of past and present generations of
technical workers. The dominance of linear logic and
unambiguous problem-solving, the reliance on a
calculus, precision and measurement which are vital to
deal with the technical side of engineering tend to
prevent most engineers from consideration of nontechnological (moral, cultural, ecological etc.)
imperatives involved in their work since the latter are
highly irrational, unmmeasurable and unpredictable
phenomena that could be nothing more than a messy
complication for technically perfect schemes and
solutions.
Thus mathematical correctness and technological
virtuosity appear to be the only criteria and goals of
professional performance for the bulk of efficient
engineers whose overall value system and motivation
are driven by the ‘technocratic master value’ (Pacey
1983: 124-27). Their adoration of expert rationality and
technical reasoning often finds its extension in the
neglect of the necessity and importance of discussing
complex engineering problems with people from nontechnical disciplines or with the lay public. The ‘others’
are not in the focus of the ‘tunnel vision’ intrinsic to
technocratically minded engineers.
Being widespread among technical workers in
different countries, technocratic values and styles of
thinking orchestrate their preferences, attitudes and
actual efforts in respect of the knowledge, skills, modes
of behaviour etc. that are considered to be characteristic
of a successful engineer. Again the principle of
preference is rational and unambiguous: the knowledge
and skills which are not directly related to the narrow
technical aims of engineering are regarded as
unnecessary and not worth spending time for their
acquisition or development. The net result is a
technocratic model of an efficient engineer easily
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The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
transmissible to the students of technical disciplines
who from the outset of their professional education are
exposed to the influence of pure rationality and linear
logic and, therefore, are prepared to reproduce this
model in their own considerations concerning the ‘ideal
image’ of a contemporary engineer.
This can be illustrated by the tables i and ii (Appendix
A) based on the data from my surveys of engineering
2
undergraduates in Belarus and England They suggest
that despite some differences in assessment of certain
socio-professional characteristics the general patterns of
preference appear to be very much alike in both
countries, especially in the case of narrow professional
qualities (Table i). The future Belarusian and English
engineers obviously regard themselves to be practical
users of scientific knowledge (highest rank in both
cases is given to ‘skills in practical application of
knowledge’) rather than producers of it (unanimous
lowest rank to ‘research and inventional activity’).
The contours of the technocratic paradigm in
undergraduates’ consciousness become more apparent
if one scrutinises Table ii in which judgements about
direct professional virtues are presented alongside those
about broad social, economic, cultural and normative
qualities. There is no doubt about the general
domination of the former — which appear to have in
both cases not only similar ranks, but close actual
values of indexes (see qualities No 2, 6, 9) — over the
latter which, being assessed quite differently by
Belarusian and English students (see qualities No 1, 8,
10), are, nonetheless, similarly underrated in both cases
against the backdrop of the importance attached to the
main technocratic merits.
Thus the overall picture drawn by Belarusian and
English respondents is close to what Whalley names
‘the classic image of the engineer’ (1986: 104) that
implies first of all preference and practical preparedness
to deal with things rather than people. There might be
possession of certain wider skills in areas of
management, economics and finance but they are
considered to be less important and easily acquirable
through learning by doing in the event of promotion to a
corresponding post.
The domination of this image of the technical expert
seems to be tacitly recognised by most Western
comparative studies of EET in Europe, the United
States, and Japan (Lane 1989: 78-81; Lawrence 1992;
McCormick 1988, 1992; Porter 1990: 369, 397, 497,
628-29 etc.). All of these consider the efficiency of
2
The indices in these and analogous tables in
the text are based on five position ordinal scales (a-b-cd-e, where a = lowest value, e = highest value of the
variable measured). They are calculated according to
the following formula in which absolute number of
responses ascribed to each position of the scale is used:
(-1)a + (-0.5)b + 0c + 0.5d + 1e
I = _________________________________________________
a+b+c+d+e
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
PAGE 7
engineering education in different countries according
to a limited number of criteria such as connections with
industry, balance in the curriculum between theoretical
and practical elements of engineering, degree of
attention to managerial aspects and the like. The sociocultural, moral or ecological sides of technical
education are never seriously discussed and are
mentioned, if at all, only as issues unusual for the
‘normal’ professional formation of engineers, as in the
case of Porter’s indication on the aesthetic and
humanistic tradition of Italian EET (1990: 437).
Engineering and education researchers in the former
Soviet Union were more inclined (or obliged) to
speculate with reference to the communist ideal of
harmonised personal development about the necessity
of political (stemming from full commitment to the
policy of CPSU), socio-normative (based on communist
ethics) and cultural (supporting traditions of socialist
realism) qualities for the future engineers. However,
their preoccupation with the mentioned issues and
related practical recommendations (some of them were
extremely relevant) were only a paper fight against
technocratic tendencies in higher education. As to the
real courses in history, philosophy, economics and
social theory which were established as an obligatory
part of EET in the USSR to ensure its
‘humanitarisation’, they were scarce, completely
impregnated with ideological dogmas, often delivered
by low qualified staff and, therefore, tended to devalue
the whole humanitarian project rather than anything
else (Krylova 1990: 32-33; Zobov & Sugakova 1990:
78-81).
My own experience of teaching political history for
engineering students showed that most of them
considered classes in humanitarian disciplines at best as
a relaxation, a short funny break between serious
studies and at worse as an annoying and useless waste
of time. It was easy to notice that many of the
undergraduates whom I encountered during the three
years of my teaching career regarded moral problems or
cultural and aesthetic imperatives as something very
distant from their speciality, something which has no
relation to the professional characteristics of a ‘genuine’
engineer.
I gained the same impression from my interviews and
conversations with engineering undergraduates at the
University of Warwick. None of them mentioned socionormative or humanitarian aspects when they were
asked about the personal qualities necessary for a
modern engineer. Even economic or managerial skills
occupied very modest, if any, place in their
considerations. The broader values and qualities were
divorced, or in Pasey’s terms ‘compartmentalized’,
from the realm of professional activities in the
consciousness of English as well as Belarusian students,
which I consider to be evidence of a technocratic
paradigm.
This can also be vividly illustrated by the results of
hierarchical clustering of the variables which describe
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
attitudes of undergraduates from the Gomel Polytechnic
and Salford University towards the broad personal
qualities of a contemporary engineer (Appendix B).
As we see from the dendrograms, there are three main
clusters of qualities which appear to have similar
contents in both cases. The average indices of
importance calculated for each cluster on the basis of
table ii (Appendix A) evidence that unanimous
domination is taken by cluster iii encompassing direct
professional merits (its index’s value is 0.59 in the
Belarusian case and 0.54 in the English). Clusters i
(0.32 for Belarus; 0.20 for England) and ii (0.05 for
Belarus; 0.32 for England) describing socio-normative,
cultural, ecological regulators and characteristics of
personal behaviour lag behind, and in both cases are
more closely connected with each other rather than with
the cluster iii.
All in all this suggests that future engineers are
inclined to regard their occupation as culturally and
morally neutral, to separate pure professional qualities
from one’s humanitarian values and views. The
importance of the latter is not completely denied (on the
contrary, some of the social characteristics are rated
high enough), but nevertheless they are seen as
something very different from technical work.
This vision of engineering appears to be increasingly
at odds with the general tendencies and problems of
global development in the late modern age. In times
when the societal challenges and dilemmas of
technology-driven civilization ‘call for remoralising of
social life’, when ‘repressed existential issues, related
not just to nature but to the moral parameters of
existence as such, press themselves back on to the
agenda’ (Giddens 1991: 224), the technocratic illusion
of value-free expert rationality and the corresponding
logic of problem-solving and performance can no
longer be the main characteristics of efficient technical
or any other professional labour.
The growing recognition of the necessity to break
down the technocratic paradigm of engineering
thinking, to radically alter existing principles of
technical education, is expressed not only by
philosophers, sociologists, or educational experts
(Thring 1980; Pacey 1983; Smirnova 1989;
Krokinskaya 1990). It is shared by some practical
engineers and industrial designers who have exposed
the dangers of ‘tunnel vision’ and ‘self-expressive
individualism’ in engineering and articulated a new
system of demands and criteria for the socioprofessional formation and performance of technical
workers. Its acceptance across industrialised countries
is argued to be the main precondition of ‘design for
survival and survival through design’ (Mara 1978;
Tomalin et al 1982; Papanek 1984; Fedorova 1990:
119).
Moving from the societal level of ‘civilizational
rescue’ to mundane engineering responsibilities in the
work place we must admit that the pressure of new skill
requirements (which, in fact, reflects the global
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
PAGE 8
processes) is more and more tangible here as well. As a
result, young engineers in the former Soviet Union
blame EET not only for the gaps in their professional
knowledge and practical skills but for the lack of
economic and managerial preparedness, for poor
understanding of human psychology and social relations
(Krokinskaya 1990: 27-28).
In the West, changing demands on the personal
qualities of technical and other highly educated experts
vividly manifest themselves in the labour market
through the recruitment policies of most companies
which increasingly seek to employ flexible and
responsible individuals with developed socio-normative
qualities rather than single-minded specialists in narrow
subjects (Windolf et al 1988; Moelker 1994).
The more detailed consideration of the new
requirements for the professional and humanitarian
preparedness of engineers that are originated on macro
and micro levels by contemporary technological change
and associated global transformations of the socionatural environment can be found in my paper ‘Training
of Engineers under Economic Restructuring and Work
Transformation: A Comparative Analysis’. Developing
the line of its argumentation, it seems important to
stress here that the growing social preoccupation with
political, economic, moral and cultural aspects of
practical technology does not mean that traditional
requirements of the technical rationality, reliability and
efficiency of engineering labour and its products are no
longer essential. On the contrary, modern life is
dependent on the stable and precise functioning of
numerous technical devices, systems or processes as
never before. And nobody is really interested and able
to stop the further development of human ingenuity,
research and inventive genius which are explicit
expressions of the very nature of humankind driven by
curiosity, interest and a desire for excellence.
The point is that nowadays the value of technical
virtuosity should not be the one and only ‘master’ in the
professional mentality of engineers. Economic reasons
and users’ or need values must be accepted as issues of
the same importance. Technical workers need to
combine deep knowledge of technology and
engineering with a clear understanding of the
ecological, socio-economic, political and cultural
environment in which technology and engineering take
place. Social and moral responsibility should have the
same impact on engineering decision-making as the
pursuit of mathematical harmony and technical
sweetness. The balance and integration of all these
different values, skills and qualities or, in other words,
the democratic paradigm of professional mentality and
activities, is what engineers in all industrialised
countries really have to have in order efficiently to meet
global and local challenges of civilizational
development in the age of late modernity.
The increasing social demand on democraticallyminded engineers is not a secret for people within
national systems of EET. Engineering students and
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
teaching staff are well aware of the changing socioprofessional requirements and feel a certain pressure to
keep up with them. Thus one can regard the following
students’ views on the issue as quite typical:
“An engineer who simply knows about
engineering is probably not a great deal of use
to a company… To gain any sort of
responsibility and to get anywhere within the
engineering, I think, you’ve got to have a much
better appreciation and a sort of wider picture”
(2nd year undergraduate in manufacturing
systems engineering, University of Warwick)
PAGE 9
(2nd year undergraduates in manufacturing
systems engineering, University of Warwick).
The analysis of data from my surveys in Gomel and
Salford also suggests some interesting evidence for the
discussion. Thus, when the undergraduates were asked
the question: “If you were a lecturer, what aspects of
your work with students would you pay most attention
to?” the three most often ticked options from the
proposed list of seven appeared to be the same in both
countries, although the pattern of preferences within the
‘leading three’ was different.
In the Belarusian case there were two top aspects of
“There’ve always been equivocal relations
almost
equal
significance:
‘improvement
of
between engineering and marketing… We [i.e.
professional training quality’ (ticked by 59% of
engineers] tend to just specifically make good
respondents) and ‘encouragement of independent
engineering products but there is no market for
thinking and work skills’ (52.5%), the third place was
them… So, we just tend to make things
occupied by the option ‘encouraging a sense of
[giggling] for our own satisfaction. From that
professional duty and responsibility’ (22.5%).
point of view we need to be generally a lot more
The English undergraduates showed their strong
aware of what surrounds us and what’s required
preference for ‘encouragement of independent thinking
rather than fulfilling our own purposes” (3 rd
and work skills’ (72.9%) while the next two most
year undergraduate in electrical engineering,
popular options ‘encouraging a sense of professional
University of Warwick).
duty and responsibility’ (37.1%) and ‘improvement of
professional training quality’ (28.6%) were quite far
The same ideas of conformity with end-users’ values
behind.
and economic reasons are observed in the opinions of
the engineering undergraduates discussing the main
What is the most interesting, however, is that in both
factors one should take into consideration to make ‘a
countries the choice of lecturers and tutors who were
good technical solution’:
offered the same list of seven options to select the most
important aspects of their work resulted in the same
“[Adam:] The likely use of the product, I think,
‘leading three’. The preferences of Belarusian staff
is probably one of the most important factors…
were given to ‘encouragement of independent thinking
If you’re engineering a product to last for years
and work skills’ (ticked by 83.3% of respondents),
and years you’ve got to think about the quality,
‘improvement of professional training quality’ (76.7%)
the materials, instruction and anything else…
and ‘encouraging a sense of professional duty and
[Kerry:] Yes, and cost is always a consideration
responsibility’ (37.1%). In the English case the most
with any product… So, generally speaking, we
important aspects were ‘encouragement of independent
need to be flexible in our solutions, don’t we”
thinking and work skills’
(88%), ‘encouraging a sense of
professional
duty
and
Table 1
responsibility’
(41%)
and
Attitudes of Belarusian and English teaching staff to the necessity of ‘improvement of professional
enhancing the ethical orientation of engineering education and training quality’ (35%).
The significant conclusion
training.
which can be supported by
these results is that, despite the
Answers to question:
traditionally strong position of
'It is necessary to pay
Belarusian
English
technocratic preferences, moral
issues and related socioTotal
normative values little by little
struggle their way up to
more attention to ethical
staff
staff
positions of high significance in
problems when training
the consciousness of students
and teachers of engineering in
future engineers?’
No. (%)
No. (%)
No. (%)
different countries.
Yes
38 (63.3)
10 (58.8)
48 (62.3)
Another sign of recognition
for
a humanitarian agenda
Difficult to say
20 (33.3)
5 (29.4)
25 (32.5)
within EET is the positive
No
2 ( 3.3)
2 (11.8)
4 ( 5.2)
attitudes of teaching staff to the
60 (100)
Chi-square= 1.92
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
17 (100)
p= .383
77 (100)
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
enhancing of ethical aspects in the educational process.
The necessity of 'ethical disciplines’, an ‘engineering
Hippocratic oath’ to regulate the ‘moral spectrum of
engineering’ is often accentuated by adherents of an
integrated vision of technology and design (Thring
1980: 231-32; Pacey 1983: 112-13). This attention
stems from the understanding of professional ethics as
an influential socio-personal phenomenon aimed to
establish balance and “cooperation” between different
values and qualities of an engineer which, as we saw,
are the key principles for the democratic reformation of
experts’ thinking.
Table 1 suggests that the majority of the people
directing the professional formation of future engineers
in Gomel Polytechnic and the University of Salford
tend to accept the mentioned socio-normative concerns.
However, to recognise the necessity of doing
something is not the same as actually doing it. And as
table 2 shows, the real integration of ethical elements
into the processes of engineering education is far from
being good enough, especially in the English case.
As to the obvious advantage of Belarusian lecturers
and tutors in their reported efforts to present moral
aspects of engineering to the undergraduates, it should
be regarded with a certain criticism. One must take into
account a long-established tradition of Soviet life in
general and education in particular to take the desirable
for the real as well as a great subjectivity in
understanding and interpretation of such general
PAGE 10
also confirmed by the fact that engineering educators in
both institutions are similarly interested in the further
development of EET’s ethical aspects (Table 1).
In summary, I would argue that universality in the
nature and functions of engineering, implying the
practical application of pure scientific knowledge and
analytical methods to the solution of technical
problems, also manifests itself in a similar influence on
engineers’ occupational mentality and general way of
thinking regardless of national and cultural peculiarities
of their education and professional socialisation. Due to
this, technical workers across industrialised countries
are prone to follow a technocratic paradigm in their
value orientation, problem-solving, and practical
activities, while the global transformations of the
human and natural environment, informed by rapid
technological change, demand a democratic reformation
and remoralising of experts’ thinking.
Although the necessity for a new integrated
vision of engineering, technology and
industrial design is increasingly recognised by
technical students, educators, and practical
workers, the ‘profession is still slow… to
change’ (Papanek 1984: xv) and the required
shift of paradigms is still far from being
accomplished either in the West or in the East.
To find an explanation for this quite
controversial situation one
obviously needs to move
on from a generalising
Table 2
The actual referring of Belarusian and English teaching staff to issues review of the engineering
profession to the analysis
of engineering ethics during the educational process.
of historical and
Answers to question:
institutional peculiarities
inherent to the
'Do you discuss the
Belarusian
English
occupational education
Total
and socialisation of
engineers in different
problems of engineers'
staff
staff
countries. They will be in
professional ethics
the focus of the following
when teaching students?’
No. (%)
No. (%)
No. (%)
chapter.
Yes, often
35 (58.3)
4 (23.5)
39 (50.6)
Difficult to say
No, never
24 (40.0)
1 ( 1.7)
60 (100)
Chi-square= 13.44
9 (52.9)
4 (23.5)
17 (100)
p= .001
33 (42.9)
5 ( 6.5)
77 (100)
wordings as ‘discuss often’ by different people. After
all, as we saw already and will see later the outcome of
ethical efforts by Belarusian teaching staff in terms of
value system and world-view of their students is very
much alike to that of their English colleagues. This is
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 11
Chapter 2
Technocratic tendencies in professional education and socialisation:
different patterns, similar outcomes?
Unlike the nature and functions of technical labour the
process of becoming a professional engineer in different
countries tends to significantly variegate. The majority
of commentators explaining national diversities in the
organisation and operating of EET look at specifics of
the route to industrialisation that was taken by a
particular society, at the historical patterns and
outcomes of struggle among employers, technical
workers, the state, and preindustrial forces which have
influenced the educational system and professional
socialisation routines, as well as broad social attitudes
and stereotypes concerning the occupation (Glover &
Kelly 1987; Lane 1989; Meiksins & Smith 1993a;
Meiksins & Smith 1993b). In this context national
peculiarities are seen as ‘the summation of historical
differences of the timing and entry into industrial
capitalism… [which] is reproduced through a society’s
institutions’(Lee & Smith 1992: 8).
According to these criteria institutions of engineering
education and professional socialisation in the UK and
ex-USSR present two extremely opposite cases. The
Anglo-Saxon tradition of EET explicitly reflects the
experience of the country which was historically the
first to industrialise under conditions of laissez-faire
principles in state industrial and educational policies,
with the persistence of certain preindustrial patterns and
routines. As to the Soviet EET presented in the
Belarusian case, it is a vivid example of an educational
tradition formed and developed under strongest state
control in conditions of late ‘forced’ industrialisation
and revolutionary ‘break-up’ with the past. Although it
is not possible to consider in detail the cases of other
industrial countries within the limits of the present
paper, I would argue that their traditions of EET
informed by the same factors (character of
industrialisation, degree of state involvement etc.)
combine in different ways the features of the two
extremes in question and, therefore, can be placed
somewhere in between them.
The national diversities in the timing and pattern of
industrialisation appear to result in the different social
status and prestige of engineering across industrialised
economies. Thus in Great Britain the minor role of the
state in capitalist development and the preservation of
pre-industrial vestiges in the organisation of technical
work, and in employers’ and public attitudes towards it,
have determined the relatively low status of engineers
in comparison to other professionals or to their
counterparts in mainland Europe and America. These
issues are scrutinized in my paper “The Character and
Extent of the Professionalisation of Engineers in Britain
and the Implications of This for Their Position within
Management”, published as paper 3 in this series, which
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
presents a brief historical outlook of attempts
undertaken by technical workers in this country to move
up the ladder of social prestige.
The status of being an engineer in the former Soviet
Union has undergone more dramatic transformations.
At the beginning of broad industrialisation in the
country (1928–30) engineers and technicians were in
great demand. The involvement of the Soviet state in
organising and running nation-wide EET, in
encouraging bright young people to study engineering,
in providing material and propagandist support for the
profession was much greater and more energetic than in
the case of the other later industrialisers like France or
Germany because of the threatening international
atmosphere and the socio-political and ideological
meaning attached to industrialisation in Soviet Russia.
The totalitarian concentration of all available
resources on a few strategic directions brought
amazingly quick results in the sense of industrial
development, as well as the expansion of general and
technical education. In the enormous country where
before 1917 professional engineers were educated in
extremely limited numbers by scarce institutions (none
of them was on the territory of Belarus), a broad
network of specialised secondary and higher
educational establishments producing thousands of
qualified technical workers per year was organised
within three decades. Engineering became one of the
most popular and prestigious professions which
provided quite high incomes, especially in the first
years of industrialisation. The peak of its popularity
was, probably, attained in the 1960s. By that time the
pace of increase in number of engineers and technicians
employed in the national economy of the USSR had
reached a record level: during the period between 1960–
1970 the number of Soviet technical workers grew from
700.000 to 2.493.000 i.e. 3.6 times (Suleimanov 1990:
31-32). It was a ‘glorious epoch’ when the
achievements of Soviet aerospace technology, that
ensured a breakthrough of humankind into outer space,
together with pioneering the peaceful use of nuclear
energy, created for science and engineering an
additional halo of attractiveness in the eyes of Soviet
youth and made technology and education experts in the
West scrutinize EET in the USSR in search of ‘the
secrets’ of Russian success (Krokinskaya 1990: 23;
Phillips 1992: 52).
In the following decades, however, things have
gradually changed. The continuous ‘planned’ expansion
in the production of technical workers (in 1974 the
number of specialists graduated from engineering
institutes in the USSR was 6 times higher than in the
USA (Yadov 1977: 11)) was not accompanied by the
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
proper use of engineering labour in the national
economy. The over-educated technical workers found
themselves exposed to progressive routinization in the
working place, where the main emphasis was on noncreative, production functions, where their technical
knowledge was under-utilized and their access to
research and development was circumscribed. Besides,
as a result of a deliberate policy of ‘social equality’, the
income differential between engineers and manual
workers has been significantly narrowed and, moreover,
some categories of the latter became much better paid
than the former. In recent years, for instance, the
average salary of an engineering graduate was half the
average wages earned by a skilled manual worker of the
same age (Rutkevich & Rubina 1988: 88-89; Babosov
1983: 94). The bright image of Soviet engineering
faded to black and the profession has gone down the
ladder of prestige (Kryshtanovskaya 1988; Lisovsky
1990a: 12-13).
Thus one can argue that two cases of industrialisation
diametrically opposite in the sense of time, pace, state
involvement etc. have eventually resulted in
approximately the same relatively low social status of
engineering both in the UK and ex-USSR (Belarus).
The key difference of the stories, however, is that
British engineers have more or less successfully
struggled to raise their prestige to the level of classical
professions, to gloss over the stigma of manual labour
historically associated with technical work in this
country. On the contrary, the social rating of their
Soviet counterparts, which from the outset was high and
buttressed by formal credentials, different job character,
level of authority and payment etc., is declining to the
level of skilled manual workers and the graduate barrier
appears to be the last significant divide between two
categories of employees.
This difference in the backgrounds against which
school leavers in both countries make their vocational
choice, to my mind, tends to manifest itself in quite
diverse reasons informing the choice of an engineering
career in England and Belarus.
In the British case, the relatively low status of
technical occupations appears as a sort of guarantee that
most of the students enter an engineering course not
because it leads to a highly fashionable or prestigious
profession, but because of their genuine interest in
engineering itself. Some of the decisions in favour of
engineering probably involve consideration of future
prospects in technological change which promise a
further increase in the status and importance of
engineering in society. It is difficult to say how far
these considerations really influence the vocational
choice of English students, but they are definitely
mentioned in advertising literature produced by
Departments of Engineering in this country.
Most people who entered engineering education in the
former Soviet Union in the 1980s (i.e. those who were
in the last year of their course at the time of my
research) seem to have no illusions about any bright
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
PAGE 12
prospects of technological change in their country or
about the possible revival of the social status of
engineering. That is why the interest in the ‘nuts and
bolts’ of the profession, which was not really
acknowledged in the society, has influenced their
vocational choice quite moderately. What was more
important is the possession of higher education
credentials which, regardless of the specialism, were
able to provide good career prospects in many other
areas more respected than engineering and, generally,
were a phenomenon of noticeable prestige in the exUSSR. There was also an increasing number of students
who did not take any of these reasons into account.
They entered engineering education by chance in order
to put off a decision to work for some years or simply
‘to have fun’ in a student environment. As a rule, they
had quite poor achievements at secondary school, but
nevertheless were accepted onto the course because
engineering education did not attract enough bright
applicants whereas it was necessary to fulfil somehow
the state plan for the intake into EET across the country.
The discussed divergence in factors and reasons
influencing undergraduates’ choice of speciality in the
UK and ex-USSR can be traced on the data from the
surveys in Gomel and Salford presented in Table iii
(Appendix A). It shows that the principal reasons of
undertaking professional education and training for
English undergraduates were interest in the occupation
itself, orientation to the creative character of
engineering which enables them to realise their abilities.
The general benefits of higher education were also
taken into serious account by the future English
engineers while making their choice of speciality. These
data appear to be in conformity with the results of a
nation-wide survey of engineering graduates published
by Berthoud and Smith, who found the same principal
reasons to determine their respondents’ decision to take
a course in engineering (1980: 65).
In the Belarusian case, orientation to higher education
is the only obviously leading motive whereas ‘interest
in profession’, which has the second highest (but
already negative) value of the influence index, lags far
behind. The comparatively high meaning of ‘accidental
circumstances’ among the rest of the factors indicates
the much more sporadic, ad hoc character of vocational
decisions made by Belarusian students.
Thus we can suggest that English undergraduates
make their choice of degree in engineering more
consciously than their Belarusian counterparts, who
from the outset tend to be less committed to the quite
randomly chosen profession.
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 13
Apart from the mentioned divergence in evolution of
professional status, this phenomenon can be explained
by a narrow specialisation in the last years of British
This can not be explained by the better work of career
guidance and information services at English schools,
since in the case of the engineering profession their
work is assessed as ‘often
inadequate’ (Berthoud & Smith
Table 3
1980: 62). And as one can also
Staff assessment of undergraduates’ awareness of the future profession at the see there is no difference in staff
views on the quality of career
beginning of their professional education
guidance registered by my
Answers on question:
surveys in Belarus and England
‘How many first year
Belarusian
English
Total
(Table 4).
students have the correct
staff
staff
It seems more likely that the
image of their future
greater adequacy in the image of
profession?’
No. (%)
No. (%)
No. (%)
the profession inherent to
Majority have the correct
English freshmen is determined
by the practical experience of
image
3 ( 5.0)
2 (11.8)
5 ( 6.5)
industrial work prior to entering
Some students have
the
University,
which
the correct image
23 (38.3)
11 (64.7)
34 (44.2)
traditionally was and still is a
wide-spread starting point for
Majority do not have
becoming
a
professional
the correct image
29 (48.3)
3 (17.6)
32 (41.6)
engineer in Britain (Berthoud &
Practically no one has
Smith 1980: 63). Thus, there
the correct image
5 ( 8.3)
1 ( 5.9)
6 ( 7.8)
were about 26% of respondents
60 (100)
17 (100)
77 (100)
at Salford University who had
been employed before entering
3
Maintel-Haenszel Chi-square= 4.37
p= .036
higher education in the area
connected with their degree
course, while the share of such
secondary schools (A-levels). It develops interests and
students in Belarusian sample was 13%.
abilities of the students in a certain direction, unlike the
Soviet secondary schooling, which followed until quite
Putting all of these evidence and considerations
recently the practice of equal attention to sciences and
together we can argue that English engineering students
humanities with little possibility for specialisation.
from the very beginning of their professional education
There might be other explanations as well.
are more aware of and oriented to the content and
values of engineering. Therefore, they appear to be
The bigger vocational awareness of English
more predisposed to their further quick integration into
undergraduates is confirmed by the fact that the
the profession with the subsequent acceptance of the
proportion of their tutors and lecturers, who consider a
‘classic’ technocratic paradigm of thinking. The latter,
rather significant part of the first year students to have a
as we remember, is based on the exclusive domination
more or less correct image of engineering, is higher
of narrow technical imperatives and the marginalisation
(although not substantially) than in case of Belarusian
or compartmentalization of the rest of nonstaff (Table 3).
technological values and interests (see, for instance,
index’s value of the first factor in Table iii, Appendix
A). Whereas all this might be the case for some students
3
As in the case of tables based on calculated
in Belarus, their attitudes to the profession are generally
indices, Maintel-Haenszel Chi-square is applied here
more distant and, therefore, the preconditions for classic
and in table 4 for more precise assessment of linear
technocratic bias of their consciousness are not seen
association between the variables which are measured
quite so clearly at this stage.
with the help of ordinal scales.
Table 4
Quality of the career guidance work with the undergraduates prior to entering the
University (staff assessment)
Level of quality
Belarusian
English
Total
staff
staff
No. (%)
No. (%)
No. (%)
High
1 ( 1.7)
Higher than medium 7 (11.9)
Medium
28 (47.5)
Lower than medium 12 (20.3)
0 (00.0)
2 (11.8)
9 (52.9)
6 (35.3)
1 (1.3)
9 (11.8)
37 (48.7)
18 (23.7)
Low
11 (18.6)
COMPARATIVE LABOUR 59
STUDIES
(100)
0 (00.0)
17 (100)
11 (14.5)
76 (100)
Maintel-Haenszel Chi-square= .231 p= .631
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 14
undergraduates were not deceived in
their real encounter with EET and
Undergraduates’ attitudes to their profession/speciality
the profession itself and, therefore,
Answers to question: Belarusian
English
Total there is no reason to be disappointed
with the vocational choice they
‘Do you like
students
students
originally made.
The process of education and
speciality involved?’ No. (%)
No. (%)
training itself is a mighty factor
No. (%)
shaping and reshaping students’
attitudes to the future occupation as
Yes
69 (34.5)
42 (60.0)
111 (41.1)
well as the main traits of their
professional mentality. The majority
Neither Yes nor No 95 (47.5)
24 (34.3)
119 (44.1)
of undergraduates who participated
No
36 (18.5)
4 ( 5.7)
40 (14.8)
in my surveys recognised the
200 (100)
70 (100)
270 (100)
changing impact of EET on their
image of the profession. Although
Chi-square= 15.54
p= .000
about 40% of the total number of
respondents from both countries
stated the opposite, we should take
The character of vocational choice is definitely among
into account that quite often the impact of the day-tothe main factors influencing the emotional attitudes of
day educational environment on the mentality of
undergraduates towards their future profession. A
students might occur on the subconscious level,
person who has consciously chosen the occupation that
unnoticed by themselves.
is closest to his/her interests and abilities will more
As one can see from table 7, there is a significant
likely enjoy it during professional training and after.
divergence in the directions of evolution in the
This can be quite vividly illustrated by the data from
undergraduate’ image of engineering. While in the
my surveys (Table 5), which suggest that English
English case the number of those who improved their
undergraduates have much better attitudes towards their
image of the future occupation is
twice as high as those who became
disappointed in it, the Belarusian case
Table 6
looks much more ‘balanced’.
Stability of undergraduates’ vocational choice
Moreover, the share of the second
Answers to question:
category among Belarusian students
is 3% bigger than of the first one.
‘Would you repeat your
Belarusian
English
This invites us to compare the main
Total
peculiarities of EET in both countries.
From my point of view, the key
choice of speciality/ students
students
difference here is that 5 years of
profession?’
No. (%)
No. (%)
engineering education in the exUSSR encompass a huge list of
No. (%)
subjects which are compulsory to
Yes
45 (22.5)
38 (54.3)
83 (30.7)
study (or more precisely: to pass) in
order to fulfil formal state
Neither Yes nor No 64 (32.0)
14 (20.0)
78 (28.9)
requirement and standards, while the
usual 3 years of a British degree
No
91 (45.5)
18 (25.7)
109 (40.4)
course in engineering are much more
Total
200 (100)
70 (100)
270 (100)
flexible in the context which implies
a limited list of obligatory subjects
Chi-square= 26.65
p= .000
and a wide range of options.
Until very recently the pattern of
speciality than their Belarusian counterparts.
Soviet higher education gave scarce possibilities of
The greater satisfaction with the profession inherent
choice for the students who had to obey the
to English engineering students is obviously behind
requirements of an overcrowded and superficially
their more confident negative position in respect of the
diverse course that tends to provide a lot of detailed and
hypothetical possibility of re-arranging their initial
concrete knowledge, rather than general principles of
choice of speciality. Many Belarusian students, on the
problem-solving and know-how of professional selfcontrary, would be happy to do so (Table 6).
education. The emphasis on the latter is more
The picture in general looks as though the quite
characteristic of the British academic system which has
realistic professional expectations of English
been historically known for its liberal attitudes to the
Table 5
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 15
students, who are taught and encouraged to make up
their minds independently, to choose the ‘ends and
quality of different forms of the educational and
training process higher than Belarusian undergraduates,
except in the case of social sciences.
However, the divergence in the
Table 7
assessments of the latter is not big
Evolution in the undergraduates’ image of the future profession under the enough to be considered seriously.
impact of occupational education and training
It is also quite clear that although
different between countries, the index
Answers to question:
values in general are far from highly
‘Has your image of the
significant (the highest index in Table
intended profession Belarusian
English
Total 12 is 0.4 while the highest possible is
1.0). This, to my mind, reflects the
changed since entering
students
students
situation in which a certain
understanding of the occupation and
the university?’
No. (%)
No. (%)
personal qualities necessary to
perform professional duties, which
No. (%)
has been formed in one way or
Changed for the better53 (26.8)
30 (43.5)
83 (31.1)
another in the consciousness of
practically all final year students,
Did not change
85 (42.9)
25 (36.2)
110 (41.2)
comes into contradiction with the
existing pattern of education and
Changed for the worse60 (30.3)
14 (20.3)
74 (27.7)
training.
The
undergraduates
198 (100)
69 (100)
267 (100)
increasingly feel that they are taught
Chi-square= 7.00
p= .030
in ‘a wrong way’ with an emphasis
on subjects that seem to be useless in
their future activities. The following
means’ adequate to their abilities and resources.
views of English engineering undergraduates based on
Without going into detailed discussion of the
their experience of industrial placements, or working
advantages and shortcomings of the two mentioned
for a sponsor, look to me typical and very much like the
traditions in EET, we must admit that in our case
position
of
their
Belarusian
counterparts who are in many ways
more adherent to that kind of idea:
Table 8
Undergraduates’ attitudes to activities connected with the professional “[When working in industry] I found
that a lot of work which a modern
education and training
engineer requires you can actually do
Answers to question: Belarusian
English
Total if you’ve got a reasonable technical
background up to a sort of A-level. I
‘Do you enjoy activities
students
students
mean most of the other things you can
pick up in practical work. It will teach
connected with the
you everything you need to know…
professional training?’
No. (%)
No. (%)
Manufacturing should be a fairly
practical degree but I think it’s still
No. (%)
too much emphasis on basic learning
Yes
38 (19.0)
30 (44.8)
68 (25.5)
stuff we do to take it for exams and
then we go to the next bit of
More likely Yes than No102 (51.0) 25 (37.3)
127 (47.6)
information. And a lot of this stuff at
the end of the day you’ll unlikely end
More likely No than Yes54 (27.0) 6 ( 9.0)
60 (22.5)
up using… Yes, unfortunately, to a
No
6 ( 3.0)
6 ( 9.0)
12 ( 4.5)
certain extent it is useless.
200 (100)
67 (100)
267 (100)
A lot of the time here [in
University] I do feel like you’re
Chi-square= 26.30
p= .000
becoming a professional exam
taker… You go throughout the
year and, then, at the end you’re
engineering students from England appear to be more
just purely concentrated on exams. All you can
satisfied with the activities linked to professional
think about is exams and how you gonna pass
training than their counterparts from Belarus (Table 8).
them… The way I’m feeling my system at the
moment is I’m gonna fulfil this degree, get the
The same tendency can be observed in table 9 which
piece of paper and then go to an organisation
shows that English students in general tend to assess the
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
PAGE 16
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
and actually learn to do what I’m doing in the
job there… I’m gonna need to be trained to be
useful for that company. That will be my next
characterised by concentration on narrow practical
knowledge and skills necessary to pursue the master
value of technical virtuosity. It is noteworthy that
Table 9
The undergraduates’ satisfaction with the quality of different forms of educational and training process
(satisfaction index’s value ranges between +1 and -1)
Forms of education
Haenszel
and training
Indexes
Belarus
Ib
of
England
Ie
satisfaction
(Ib-Ie)
^I
Chi2
MantelP
1. Lectures on
special subjects
.23
.34
.11
3.41
NS
2. Tutorials/labs on
special subjects
.04
.21
.17
6.55
.011
3. Lectures on common
education subjects
(maths, physics etc)
.06
.27
.21
10.58
.001
4. Tutorials/practical
classes on common
education subjects
-.08
.15
.23
10.81
.001
5. Lectures on social
subjects
-.04
-.23
.19
5.82
.016
6. Seminars/tutorials
on social sciences
(where appropriate)
-.12
-.23
.11
1.74
NS
.05
.40
.35
22.86
.000
7. Exams, tests
learning process…
I think part of the problem really is that
engineering courses are generally in a lot of
ways are very outdated… For example, a lot of
our courses have changed very very little. I
mean not just the individual courses but the
choice of courses that you are offered and so on
have changed very little probably in the last 5–
10 years… You know, I can’t believe that things
haven’t changed enough for the best way to be
teaching now, to be different from the way it was
there” (2nd and 3rd year undergraduates in
manufacturing
systems
and
electrical
engineering, University of Warwick).
Thus, the deeper penetration into the practice of the
profession leads English undergraduates to the
assimilation of the ‘cult of experience’ historically
inherent in British engineering (Whalley 1986: 53-54)
and implying the superiority of a practical skill over
University theories and subjects. Not only does this
determine a certain dissatisfaction with the current
education, especially with its practical aspects (see table
9 again), but it also seems to reflect the growing
influence of technocratic reasoning which is
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
although they are not very happy with their professional
education, English students do not lose their interest in
the profession. They are sure enough that even if their
future occupation does not require a lot of theoretical
knowledge it will certainly provide them with
opportunities to use their creative abilities and
ingenuity, since the important thing there ‘is an idea of
flexibility and being able to cope with lots of different
situations’ (2nd year manufacturing systems engineering
undergraduate, University of Warwick).
One might suggest that discovering practical
engineering has had a great influence on the
professional mentality of Belarusian students as well.
For many of them, who from the outset were not so
committed to the profession, an encounter with the
reality of engineering work at the average Soviet
enterprise resulted in a final occupational
disillusionment. They found out not only that high
theoretical knowledge is irrelevant for real technical
work, but also that there are very few, if any,
possibilities for most engineers to realise themselves in
a creative job.
The first thing that students in the ex-USSR usually
expected to hear from their employers after graduating
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
PAGE 17
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
(Lisovsky 1990b: 178-79). Thus
The level of undergraduates’ independence in performing of educational alongside the other factors, the
technocratic pattern of labour use
tasks according to their self-assessment
established in Soviet society has
influenced the technocratic logic of
Scale
Belarusian
English
undergraduates’ preparations for their
Total
future job.
of
students
students
It is possibly the case that this image
levels
No. (%)
No. (%)
of a future professional role as a passive
No. (%)
performer of prescribed narrow tasks,
together with the generally strict and
Completely independent41 (63.1) 24 (36.9)
65 (100)
pressing tradition of education oriented
on the one-way, linear transmission of
Quite independent 62 (67.4)
30 (32.6)
92 (100)
often outdated knowledge to students,
are responsible for their underdeveloped
Semi-independent 87 (85.3)
15 (14.7)
102 (100)
creative abilities, initiativeness and
Non-independent
7 (87.5)
1 (12.5)
8 (100)
independence in their work. These
Total
197 (73.8)
70 (26.2)
267 (100)
deficiencies appear to be characteristic
of Belarusian students to a much greater
Chi-square= 13.56
p= .004
extent than of English undergraduates.
This can be traced on their own
was: “Forget everything you were taught in the
assessments (Table 10) as well as through the
University” (Lisovsky 1990b: 178). The main
judgements of their tutors (Table 11).
requirement for them was to maintain and supervise a
The general picture looks as though English
monotonous production process which did not change
undergraduates driven by definite interest towards
for years and was geared to pursue the fulfilment of
‘existential pleasures’ of their profession and stimulated
state plans (Soviet master value) that, as a rule, had
by a more liberal educational atmosphere (which, by the
little to do with technical efficiency or economic
way, enables them to easily criticise EET) quite
rationality. In this context the attitudes of most students
confidently and independently make their way to the
to the broader knowledge and skills as well as to the
occupational and educational goals stemming from their
training in general were informed by the wide-spread
own understanding of the role and functions of a
consideration: “Why should I do my best if it would not
modern engineer. Since the latter has apparent
be acknowledged after my graduation anywhere”
Table 10
Table 11
The undergraduates’ possession of different socio-professional qualities according to the assessment of teaching
staff (possession index’s value ranges between +1 and -1)
Socio-professional
Indexes
of
Belarus
England
Haenszel
qualities
P
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Ib
possession
Ie
(Ib-Ie)
MantelChi2
^I
Interest in the
future profession
-.15
.29
.44
12.40
.000
Desire to study,
to obtain knowledge
-.24
.09
.33
7.20
.007
Autonomy and
independence in
study and work
-.25
.09
.34
9.03
.003
Initiative and
creative approach
-.40
.06
.46
19.19
.000
-.26
-.27
.01
0.66
NS
Humanitarian
knowledge (arts,
music, literature)
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
PAGE 18
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
technocratic bias, it is not an accident that the main
attention of English students is concentrated on
acquiring narrow practical knowledge and skills that
sometimes undermines their desire to study general
theoretical subjects and certainly determines their
attitudes to humanitarian knowledge as something
incompatible with real engineering.
Belarusian undergraduates seem to drift down the
flow without any clearly articulated aims or
inclinations. Many of them are so-called ‘ordinary’ or
‘gray’ students, which became a common phenomenon
in most Soviet universities and institutes during the
point of view. Neither have they developed personal
skills to do these. The technocratic approach of
Belarusian students, which in many respects is even
more narrow than that of English undergraduates,
stemmed from their conventional readiness to become
parts, ‘nuts and bolts’ of the big bureaucratic machine
named Soviet society. They knew it would not give
them much in the sense of an interesting and
challenging job or a stimulating salary but it would not
demand much from them either, except conformity (at
least formal) with its rules and satisfactory performance
of prescribed limited functions.
Table 12
Self-assessment of undergraduates’ preparedness for different aspects of their future career (preparedness index’s
value ranges between +1 and -1)
Indexes of preparedness MantelBelarus
England
Preparedness in the
Haenszel
area of…
P
1.
professional
knowledge & skills .01
2.
social sciences
knowledge
-.26
3.
economic & finance
knowledge
-.04
4.
humanitarian
knowledge (arts, music,
literature etc.)
-.01
5.
6.
7.
8.
research
activities
management
knowledge & skills
professional
ethics
ecological
knowledge
Ib
Ie
(Ib-Ie)
Chi2
^I
.25
.24
23.76
.000
-.13
.13
3.77
.052
-.06
.02
0.15
NS
-.34
.33
21.89
.000
-.44
-.08
.36
32.47
.000
-.13
.04
.27
6.46
.011
-.02
-.04
.02
0.11
NS
.01
.01
.00
0.00
NS
1980s and are argued to be the most explicit evidence of
crisis in higher education and the general socio-political
and ideological stagnation in the USSR (Krokinskaya
1990: 23-28; Lisovsky 1990b: 177-79). It is this
category of undergraduates that supplies the ranks of
‘mean engineers’, non-creative performers and
conformists which has gradually turned into a social
group big enough to be ignored even in the ‘prosperous’
and ‘politically correct’ Brezhnev’s times (Yadov 1977:
63). Neither the excitement of the profession nor
interest in a broad social-humanitarian knowledge
appear to dominate their consciousness and behaviour.
Being used to formal control and guidance they are not
ready and interested to take responsibility, to make
independent decisions and judgments, to prove their
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
One can see quite a clear illustration for what has
been discussed above in Table 12, which presents
undergraduates’ view of themselves on the threshold of
their professional career. Taking into account the often
occurring divergence between self-assessment and real
situation, we must admit that the data in question appear
to be in conformity with the staff views registered in
Table 11 and the general logic of our argument.
More independent minded and self-confident English
undergraduates obviously feel themselves better
prepared for most aspects of their future career,
although their self-assessments are far from ideal. It is
noteworthy that the latter are decreasing and becoming
almost equal to Belarusian parameters in areas of socioeconomic, moral and ecological knowledge and skills,
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
where students from both countries consider themselves
quite ill-prepared. But, as we saw earlier, many of them
are not really interested in being prepared better.
The only one advantage of Belarusian undergraduates
(also not confirmed by their tutors, see Table 11) is
better humanitarian knowledge, which is probably the
sole echo of all the ‘humanitarisation’ programmes and
efforts within Soviet EET which were discussed in
Chapter 1. The better does not mean the best, for the
balance between preparedness or, better to say,
unpreparedness in professional and humanitarian areas
observed in self-estimations of Belarusians does not
mean that we have students with a really democratic
paradigm of thinking. I would rather argue that here we
have another type of technocratic mentality.
Unlike the ‘classic’ technocrats, overwhelmed with a
desire to express themselves through their work, to
create something exclusive, technically perfect that
drives the imagination regardless of social, economic or
ecological costs of this ‘wonder’, Soviet-type
technocrats are subjected to the conformist master
value. It demands that they be ‘like everybody’, not to
do more than prescribed, not to think about the
problems beyond your limited area of competence,
because there are other specialists to deal with
economy, ecology, culture as well as the ‘wise’ people
on the top to make the right decisions. They are
indifferent technocrats, their tunnel vision stems not
from an obsession with the creative essence of
engineering, but from the convenience of being blind
and cool to the other issues, which is the most rational
way (and as engineers they are quite qualified to
calculate this!) to a calm and balanced individual
existence in a totalitarian society.
It would be simplifying to argue that the ‘classic’ type
of technocrat is characteristic only of Western
countries, whereas indifferent technocracy is
exclusively inherent to the Eastern, Soviet-type
economies. We can certainly find representatives of
both technocratic ‘breeds’ (and there might be other
sub-types of technocracy as well) in each country. The
main difference here is presumably the proportions of
their mixture.
However, the revealed diversity in technocratic types
and supposed divergence in their actual combinations
do not influence the essence of technocracy itself,
which manifests its dangerous traits regardless of
national or cultural context. The technocrats in the UK,
ex-USSR or any other country are similar in their
professional selfishness and value-free, amoral vision of
technology, in their preoccupation with their own
interests and goals and neglect of social benefits and
users’ needs, in their linear conventional wisdom and
lack of an interdisciplinary approach etc. And it is these
characteristics which have to become extinct with the
expansion of a democratic paradigm of thinking within
the engineering profession.
But, as we see, the different patterns and traditions of
EET in Belarus and England similarly suggest very few,
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
PAGE 19
if any, real possibilities to bring up a new type of
technical worker with a more rounded, interdisciplinary approach and integrated vision of
engineering.
In this sense the situation is more or less the same in
the system of technical education established in France,
‘the historic home of the “true” engineer-technocrat’
(Glover 1992: 33), in American engineering schools,
where ‘the least bit of imagination, social concern or
cultural interest is snuffed out under a crushing load of
purely technical subjects’ (Florman 1976: 92), and in
many other EET institutions all over the world where
the educational philosophy ‘is an equal mixture of selfindulgent and self-expressive bohemian individualism
and a materialism both profit-oriented and brutal’
(Papanek 1984: 285).
There are quite a lot of attempts to overcome these
deficiencies in professional training and socialisation of
contemporary engineers and designers and, in many
respects, these problems are now better handled (Pacey
1983: 167-68). Yet the radical qualitative changes in
patterns and philosophy of EET are still far from being
realised. There is an apparent need in further studies
and discussion aimed to reveal with regard to different
national and cultural contexts what should be done to
achieve the global shift of paradigms in the
occupational mentality of technical workers, to ensure
the efficient professional formation of engineers able to
meet the challenges of the 21st century.
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE 20
Conclusion
It would be an unjustified presumption to
consider that all aspects of the technocracydemocracy dilemma inherent to the professional
formation of modern engineers in different
countries are covered in this paper. I am also not
sure whether the empirical basis of the work is
explicit enough to support its theoretical efforts
aimed to outline my main research concern.
One should bear in mind that due to the
limitations mentioned in Introduction my original
data are unable to prove anything themselves and,
therefore, can be used only as illustrations or
background for the argumentation based upon more
representative analytical sources. But even in this
case, the treatment of first hand quantitative and
qualitative materials was probably far from ideal.
My preoccupation with the central problems of the
research has originated a sort of sociological tunnel
vision, when other possible explanations of
empirical evidence may have been ignored.
Thus, gender differences between Belarusian and
English samples and, correspondingly, between
EET in the two countries were not taken into
account. While there is quite a significant
proportion of female students within Soviet higher
education (in our case it was 46.5% of respondents
in Gomel against 15.7% in Salford), according to
some large-scale studies that can be an explanation
for the low indices of undergraduates’
independence and initiative in training and research
work, as well as for poor self-assessments of
professional preparedness in general (Kozlov 1990:
149-53).
Another missing explanatory factor is an analysis
of the socio-political situation in the ex-USSR at
the moment of my surveys (1990/91). Unlike
England, where radical societal transformations are
largely a matter of history (especially in the
perception of engineering undergraduates), the
‘hot` atmosphere of social confrontation between a
newly emerged democratic opposition and the old
communist orthodoxy (which later resulted in the
August coup) might have had an impact on
students’ views registered by the survey. In this
context some extreme negative judgements can be
seen not as a reflection of the real situation but
rather as manifestations of radical criticism and
nihilism which became wide spread in the whole
society, and especially among undergraduates, at
that time. There might be other hidden agencies
that influenced the views and responses of future
engineers in Belarus and England.
However, even taking them all into consideration,
one can hardly deny the main argument of the
paper, that there is an apparent technocratic bias in
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
the professional mentality of engineering students,
which is linked to the nature of their occupation
and patterns of professional education and
socialisation.
Having emerged in different socio-economic
conditions and being distinct in its types, the
phenomenon of technocracy becomes increasingly
incompatible with, and even dangerous to, the
progress of national economies and the whole of
human civilization in the late modern age. There
are no reasons to expect that the technocratic
paradigm of thinking will be gradually selfdissolving under the impact of a changing
environment and a logic of global development.
Being deeply rooted in the cultural and educational
institutions of industrialised societies, the
technocratic tradition tends to adjust itself to the
new conditions, to force its own logic of
development.
Thus recent studies in ‘post-totalitarian` Belarus
show that technocratic ideas and notions are getting
increasingly popular in the mass consciousness of
the people in the course of economic reform,s
although the latter aimed to remove among others
such factors as state monopoly, over-regulation,
statutory plans etc. which had promoted Soviettype technocracy in previous years (Titarenko
1993: 32-33).
If we are seriously to break up a ‘vicious circle`
of technocratic practice in engineering education
and activities we need to have elaborated
programmes of changing national EET systems,
combined with sufficient moral and material
resources to turn them into reality. Although the
practical ways and means of such reforms should
be different to conform with particular national and
cultural traditions, there has to be a similarity in
their philosophy, general aims and principles.
Among the most essential of them I would like to
mention the issue to which English undergraduates
in their interviews often referred as the best remedy
against almost all deficiencies of current technical
education. This is establishing broad connections
and partnership between universities and industry,
between educators and employers. ‘Basically
industry needs to approach the educational system
and give them [i.e. educators] guide-lines what they
want` (2nd year electric engineering undergraduate,
University of Warwick). Informed by growing
competition in the global markets which demands
technical excellence, economic rationality and
ecological safety to be equally characteristic of any
product, the needs and wants of industrial firms and
organisations being directly transmitted to EET
will definitely act against narrow specialisation,
WORKING PAPER NUMBER1
Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE
ignoring of interdisciplinary approach, eschewing
of marketing aspects etc.
However the complete submission of engineering
education to industrial needs might also be
dangerous. If the master value of capitalist
production — profit making — replaces the master
value of virtuosity in the professional mentality of
technical workers it will result in nothing more
than another version of technocracy which, like the
‘classic` one, has little to do with social
responsibility, cultural and aesthetic criteria or
users’ interests.
To prevent this threat of marketing technocracy,
to ensure real balance between different values and
motives within the formation of the professional
mentality of future engineers, one obviously needs
to retain their socialisation under the independent
influence of Universities. The latter should be the
agencies presenting the interests of society, views
of technology consumers and users; providing
interdisciplinary bridges, moral and cultural
insights; inserting the missing humanitarian
dimension in flexible practice-oriented engineering
courses etc.
As several authors have mentioned, to achieve
these ends in current EET it is necessary not just to
include some new subjects in the engineering
curriculum but to rethink the whole philosophy of
training, from improving the contents of technical
textbooks
to
introducing
non-traditional
educational forms (like work of interdisciplinary
student teams for the practical needs of a local
community) and altering the whole pattern of
relations within the system ‘state-educationindustry` (Pacey 1983: 167-73, Papanek 1984: 34347, Volkov et al 1994).
All these obviously necessitate the involvement
and broad cooperation of different social forces and
groups whose interests and activities, however
diverse, today become more and more dependent
on the quality of scientific and engineering
expertise. However, the real unification of social
efforts and concerns aimed at the democratisation
of EET in different countries is still far from being
realised. The forces of social inertia, guild
selfishness and ambition, short-sighted pursuit of
narrow interests, which are characteristic of many
industrialists and educators, tend to perpetuate the
situation on the level of general discussions and
paying lip service to the reforms.
It remains to be seen whether these oldestablished ‘invisible` barriers will be overcome in
the nearest future or the professional formation of a
contemporary engineer will remain halfway
between
paradigms
of
technocracy
and
democracy.4
44
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER1
21
Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
PAGE
22
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COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
APPENDIX A
Ranking of undergraduates' considerations about narrow professional qualities of a contemporary engineer according to the index of importance (index's value
ranges between -1 and +1).
Personal
Belarus
qualities
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Ib
England
RANK
Ie
RANK
(Ib - Ie)
^I
Mantel-Haenszel's
chi-squarea
P
High level of theoretical
knowledge
Awareness of up-to-date achievements of science & engineering
Skills in practical application
of knowledge
Research & inventional activity
Ability in rational organisation
of the own work
Skill of self-improvement in
professional 'rigging` under rapid
technological change
Ability in team work organising
and managerial skills
Spearmen's rho
.60
2.0
.54
3.5
.06
1.01
NSb
.63
3.0
.59
5.0
.04
0.42
NS
.87
.43
7.0
1.0
.76
.27
7.0
1.0
.11
.16
5.45
6.52
.019
.011
.82
6.0
.54
3.5
.28
41.71
.000
.66
4.0
.52
2.0
.14
5.10
.014
.72
5.0
.73
6.0
.01
0.11
NS
.6847
P= .045
a Here and elsewhere in the analogous tables Mantel-Haenszel's chi-square is applied as a more precise linear measure of association for ordinal data which are used
to calculate indices.
b Here and elsewhere in the other tables sign 'NS` (not significant) appears when p > .05
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
Table ii
Ranking of undergraduates' considerations about broad socio-professional qualities necessary for a contemporary engineer according to the index of importance
(index's value ranges between +1 and -1)
Personal
Belarus
qualities
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Knowledge of arts, literature,
music etc.
Deep professional knowledge
Skills in research & inventional
activity
Knowledge of economics & finance
Basic knowledge of social
sciences
Creative abilities, unorthodox
professional thinking, initiative
High standard of morals,
conformity with professional ethics
Knowledge of foreign language
Ability in independent solving
of professional problems
Social activity
Ecological awareness and
responsibility
Spearmen's rho
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
England
Ib
RANK
Ie
.42
.79
7.0
11.0
-.14
.61
.30
.40
4.0
5.5
-.26
(Ib - Ie)
RANK
Mantel-Haenszel's
^I
chi-square
P
1.0
11.0
.56
.18
49.08
12.45
.000
.000
.48
.31
7.0
5.5
.18
.09
7.43
1.70
.006
NS
1.0
-.07
2.0
.19
5.51
.019
.53
9.0
.60
10.0
.07
1.05
NS
.51
-.17
8.0
2.0
.28
.16
4.0
3.0
.23
.33
10.72
16.17
.001
.000
.67
-.09
10.0
3.0
.53
.31
9.0
5.5
.14
.40
2.02
20.41
NS
.000
.40
5.5
.50
8.0
.10
2.03
NS
.6461
P= .016
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
Table iii
The impact of different factors/reasons on undergraduates' vocational choice according to the index of influence (index's value ranges between -1 and +1).
Factor or
Belarus
England
(Ib - Ie)
Mantel-Haenszel's
reason
INDEXb
INDEXe
^I
chi-square
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Importance of the profession
to society
Creative character of the
profession
Correspondence of the profession
to one's abilities and interests
The profession provides high
incomes
Specialisation in the secondary
school
Recommendations of the career
guidance service
Family traditions or advice of
relatives
Example and/or advice of friends
Desire to receive higher
education
Accidental circumstances
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
P
-.55
-.03
.52
30.66
.000
-.32
.15
.47
24.42
.000
-.15
.52
.67
41.07
.000
-.59
.00
.59
43.60
.000
-.81
-.16
.65
54.20
.000
-.85
-.59
.26
13.55
.000
-.19
-.34
-.42
-.64
.23
.30
4.36
9.29
.037
.002
.40
-.16
.35
-.66
.05
.50
.25
17.62
NS
.000
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1
The Professional Formation of a Contemporary Engineer: Between Paradigms of Technocracy & Democracy
APPENDIX B
Dendrograms presenting results of hierarchical cluster analysis of variables measuring undergraduates’
considerations about the broad socio-professional qualities of a contemporary engineer.
BELARUS
Dendrogram using Complete Linkage
Rescaled Distance Cluster Combine
CASE
Label
Num
IMECKN
IMCRAB
IMSOKNA
IMMOST
IMCUKN
IMFLKN
IMECOR
IMSOAC
IMPRKN
IMINAB
IMRESK
4
6
5
7
1
8
11
10
2
9
3
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
0
5
10
15
20
25
+ .................. + .................. + .................. + .................. +................... +
ENGLAND
Dendrogram using Complete Linkage
Rescaled Distance Cluster Combine
CASE
Label
Num
IMECKN
IMSOKN
MCUKN
IMMOST
IMCRAB
IMFLKN
MECOR
MSOAC
IMRESK
MINAB
IMPRKN
4
5
1
7
6
8
11
10
3
9
2
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
0
5
10
15
20
25
+ .................. + .................. + .................. + .................. +................... +
Key:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Knowledge of arts, literature, music etc.
Deep Professional knowledge
Skills in research & inventional activity
Knowledge of economics & finance
Basic knowledge of social sciences
Creative abilities, unorthodox thinking, initiative
High standard of morals, conformity with professional ethics
Knowledge of foreign language
Ability in independent solving of professional problems
Social activity
Ecological awareness and responsibility
(IMCUKN)
(IMPRKN)
(IMRESK)
(IMECKN)
(IMSOKN)
(IMCRAB)
(IMMOST)
(IMFLKN)
(IMINAB)
(IMSOAC)
(IMECOR)
i, i i, i i i - Numbers of the obtained clusters
COMPARATIVE LABOUR STUDIES
WORKING PAPER NUMBER 1