Specialization Latent and Manifest Functions

Our discussion about reports on the state of engineering education, and the reoccurring questions and tensions within it helped solidify an idea that had been in my mind for awhile. There are a set of concepts sometimes discussed in sociology called latent and manifest functions. Manifest functions are the intended functions or outcomes of some program or activity. So for instance, schools manifest function is to teach children and prepare them the future workforce. These are the functions we normally talk about with school, and are decided upon by an institution that has power to make these intentions clear or collectively in other cases where power is not as central. Latent functions are the outcomes that aren't explicitly intended or at least not explicitly stated. Take tracking for instance. Its manifest function is to put students along tracks or paths that match their abilities and potential, tailoring education to their needs and best preparing them for their future potential. A latent function of this, taking into consideration that student with more family resources tend to do better in school, is that tracking often segregates students of different socioeconomic backgrounds and favors those with more resources (parents with more money, who know more people in positions of power, have more status in the community, etc). That is, those with more resources end up on the better tracks--sometimes without regard to skill or potential--with more college preparation classes, for instance.

Taking this back to our discussion on Thursday, something occurred about the problem of trying to change the curriculum structure in engineering departments. Part of the problem of redesigning the curriculum, as Robin noted in a conversation during the break, is that when this topic comes up the question always is, people frame it as having to add some new class or coursework, which means something else has to be dropped. If we look at engineering it is composed of many different specialties under the broad umbrella of engineering. Students start out in first year engineering programs but then gradually move into different branches of engineering; this specialization is even more pronounced in the move toward graduate school. These students are the ones are the ones that will eventually have these same debates about engineering curriculum, and this made me wonder if there were any latent functions in engineers education experience that might complicate attempts at revising that same education later on.

Focusing on specialization, it has the manifest function of preparing students to work in different fields that are necessary through industry and government jobs. There is demand for many different types of work and people specialize in different branches to meet one of these demands. In doing so they gain a deep understanding of that field, as well as its normative culture, perhaps developing a habitus that matches the field they've become so embedded in. The latent function of this is that you get engineers who are split into many different groups, with different habitus, different expectations, norms, and so on. All of these differences may make it difficult to come to one decision on what the future of engineering education should be, so the latent function of specialization disrupts the ability for engineers to come together and create a new curriculum. Instead it becomes an in-group, out-group game of whose content gets included in the new curriculum and whose content gets canned. Not being able to see beyond this shows that to some extent, specialization leads to high identification with that specialization and muddles some engineers ability to see a broader vision of what engineering education might be.

Of course the latent function of specialization can be overcome, in multidisciplinary fields of engineering, or in societies or conferences that focus on the contributions of multiple fields. But it seems that specialization might also make movement toward a broader vision of engineering education more difficult by separate engineers into many groups who do not all see the future of engineering in the same way. Specialization cannot be discarded, but awareness of its potential to create different groups of engineers who may not always agree, or be able to come to any agreement, when it comes to critical decisions about the future of the engineering as a whole, might be something important to consider when planning for the future.