IDENTIFYING THE FOUNDATION: CONNECTING CODES OF ETHICS, ACCREDITATION, VALUES, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE TO THE ENGINEERING CURRICULUM

Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes are at the foundation of engineering curricular change in Canada. While CEAB graduate attributes require an understanding of ethics, professionalism, and impact, outcomes explicitly associated with equity, diversity, inclusion, indigeneity (EDI-I) and social justice broadly construed are absent. At present, the CEAB ethics criteria imply that understanding and valuing the code of ethics adequately addresses the issue, which leaves a gap in guidance for educators and curriculum designers. This paper reports on a thematic analysis of the 12 Canadian engineering codes of ethics and associated guidelines to discover the values overtly addressed or implied in the documents. We then map these findings onto the values of EDI-I and social justice as outlined by engineering scholars, and we offer recommendations for using the results to guide engineering instructors who want to make appropriate curriculum modifications that will support the CEAB efforts to address these movements.