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This study investigates national trends in students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupational expectations by using Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000, 2003, and 2006 data. The analyses in this study revealed several noteworthy national trends in STEM occupational expectations. In many countries students’ computing or engineering (CE) occupational expectations changed between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006, while students’ health service (HS) occupational expectations remained constant. In particular, many developed countries experienced downward national trends in CE occupational expectations among top performers in science. This study also found gender differences in national trends in STEM occupational expectations. In many countries boys’ CE occupational expectations decreased between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006, while girls’ occupational expectations remained unchanged in both CE and HS fields. Finally, the gender gaps in CE occupational expectations converged in many countries, but this convergence was not due to increases in CE occupational expectations among girls, but rather decreases in expectations among boys. Because one of the policy goals in many countries is to promote engagement in STEM education and occupations among students, especially academically talented students, the current findings – national declines in CE occupational expectations among top academic performers – will most likely be viewed as problematic in several countries. Future research should use data collected over longer periods to investigate whether students’ interest in STEM education and occupations increased or decreased in a variety of countries, and whether these patterns varied by student characteristics and performance levels. Moreover, future research must focus on factors that can explain the national trends in student interest in STEM education and occupations.

Purpose – Mainstream science, technology, and society (STS) scholars have shown little interest in engineering ethics, one going so far as to label engineering ethics activists as “shit shovelers.” Detachment from engineering ethics on the part of most STS scholars is related to a broader and long-standing split between the scholar-oriented and activist-oriented wings of STS. This chapter discusses the various STS “subcultures” and argues that the much-maligned activist STS subculture is far more likely than the mainstream scholar subculture to have a significant impact on engineering ethics education and practice.

Approach – The chapter builds on analyses of STS subcultures in research and education from the literature and identifies a similar set of subcultures for engineering ethics research and education.

Findings – Reconciliation of the STS subcultures will tap an activist tradition that already has strong ties (practical, historical, and theoretical) to engineering ethics research and education. Acknowledging that STS and engineering ethics each have legitimate, activist-oriented subcultures will position STS scholars and educators for providing needed insights to engineering activists and the engineering profession as a whole. STSers should recognize and appreciate that many engineering ethicists and engineering activists are concerned both with issues internal to the profession and broader social implications of technology.

Originality/value – The chapter presents an analysis of STS subcultures and their relationship to engineering ethics. As such, it will be of interest to STS scholars and engineering ethicists alike, as well as engineering ethics and STS educators.

The main point of these analyses is to find out the skills and capabilities engineers should have in order to act successfully in the field of innovation.

The main approach is the identification of the profiles which are expected by the enterprises and companies from their engineers. The actual literature and scientific studies are screened in order to identify evidences for the characteristics of innovative engineers.

This study shows that professional, methodological, social, and personal competencies are important factors for innovation engineers in order to be successful in their professional life.

The final result of this analysis can be used as a guideline for universities and institutes of higher education to enrich their study courses in engineering with important elements of innovation engineering in order to fill the gap between the requested profiles of innovation engineers companies need and the profiles of university graduates.

The impetus for this paper was the recognition, based on recent surveys and our own experiences, that organizations face special challenges when designing and validating selection procedures for information technology (IT) workers. The history of the IT industry, the nature of IT work, and characteristics of IT workers converge to make the selection of IT workers uniquely challenging. In this paper, we identify these challenges and suggest means of addressing them. We show the advantages offered by the modern view of validation that endorses a wide spectrum of probative information relevant to establishing the job relatedness and business necessity of IT selection procedures. Finally, we identify the implications of these issues for industrial/organizational psychologists, human resource managers, and managers of IT workers.

Not just in low-wage and low-skilled jobs but also further up in the corporate ladder, Australian corporations have culturally diverse workforces. Due to talent shortages in fields such as medicine, engineering, and education, the Australian economy is reliant on skilled immigrants. As a result, the demand to increase and diversify the workforce is growing, and Australia’s government has focused its efforts on attracting a diverse pool of skilled immigrants. As Australia’s ethnic diversity grows, businesses that want to stay competitive will find that having a diverse workforce provides them an advantage.

In current academia, as Fox points out in the opening chapter of this volume, knowledge fields are characterized by an implicit (and sometimes explicit) hierarchy, which posits a higher ranking for the “hard” and natural sciences as opposed to the social sciences and humanities. This has influenced education as well as other social arenas. Students in the social sciences have long benefited from the “exact” sciences and the technology they have produced. Numerous texts present “Statistics for the Social Sciences”; computer applications are developed particularly for social science use (e.g., SPSS); physics, chemistry, and math classes are offered for non-majors across college campuses. The texts, computer applications, and courses adapt the scientific discipline to the needs of non-science or non-math majors, broadening the impact of the respective disciplines to a wider audience, and allowing the way of thinking in one discipline to influence the others. But one would scarcely find “Sociology for the Uninitiated,” or “Social Science for Engineers.” Not that there are no social scientists eager to impart their insights to their STEM colleagues and students. In fact there is a whole movement of “public sociology,” which endeavors to share sociological insights with many types of lay audiences as well as engage sociology in public issues on many topics and levels (ASA Task Force, 2005; Burawoy, 2005). But in all too many campuses STEM students cannot fit an elective into their tight curriculum, designed to meet strict accreditation criteria, and social science winds up somewhere low on the list of priorities. To be fair, some accreditation bodies have recognized the need to introduce undergraduate students to societal contexts. For example, since their seminal EC (Engineering Criteria) 2000, ABET (the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) has incorporated into the annually updated program outcomes required for accreditation that students have “the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental and societal context” (ABET, 2007: Criterion 3h). But sometimes this outcome requirement is wedged into an ethics section, often taking up less than a two-week stint in the total undergraduate education. For an example of a more extensive application, see my website, http://users.rowan.edu/∼hartman/SocStem/index.html, where an outline of social science concepts, bibliography, and teaching ideas are developed for introducing STEM students to social science. Common sociological concepts and perspectives are illustrated in STEM contexts or using research in or on STEM subject matter. There is much material here upon which to build bridges.

Countless pundits have referred to young African American males as an “endangered species.” While this description of the state of African American male youth between the ages of 18 and 25 years can be said to apply in many different circumstances, nowhere is it more apt than in engineering education. Their rates of matriculation, persistence, and graduation in engineering trail not only those of their white, Latino, and Asian counterparts but those of African American females as well.