Social Capital in Engineering Education

Universities set goals for their graduates to perform in the workplace as well as to be responsible citizens. Students are required to not only develop a mastery of a particular subject, but civic, social and workplace skills as well. Achieving these goals is constrained by time and an academic atmosphere of individualism and competition. Traditional approaches to curriculum designed to develop only subject specific skills are no longer appropriate and adequate to satisfy these criteria. This paper argues that universities must develop student social capital. Social capital consists of social networks, pro-social norms, and the value of these networks and norms. The value of social capital has been investigated in multiple contexts such as business, economics, and sociology and the presence of social capital has been positively correlated with low crime levels, high educational attainment, retention in college and K-12, and perhaps most intriguing for engineering education, innovation and productivity in knowledge-based firms. This work presents a summary of existing literature discussing social capital that is relevant to engineering education, from business and academic settings, and utilizing this literature base suggests that engineering education curriculum be designed in terms of developing both human capital and social capital. Additionally, social learning theories are discussed that inform the view that student learning should be centered around active social involvement, including pro-social norms such as trust and reciprocity. Several educational methods are discussed that have been shown to increase student social capital, such as cooperative learning and service learning