As concepções de tecnologia na formação de engenheiros e engenheiras: um estudo do curso de Engenharia Civil da UTFPR

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the concepts of technology that underlie the education of engineers in the bachelor9s degree program in Civil Engineering at the Federal University of Technology – Paraná (UTFPR), in the Curitiba campus. To achieve this goal, a bibliographic and documentary research were made, with the analysis of the current Pedagogical Project (PPC) of the studied course. However, the PPC is not an isolated document, which expanded the verification to the institutional and national documents that support it, especially the National Curricular Guidelines for the Undergraduate Course in Engineering. The methodology has a qualitative perspective, based on historical-dialectical materialism, aiming to investigate the content present in the documents in depth and the historical trajectory of the relationship between technology and engineering. Based on the historical survey of the concepts of technology and progress in Modern Age, the development of Civil Engineering education in Brazil and in the institution analyzed, it was possible to understand how these concepts have changed over time, in such a way as to continue to promote development in the service of current capitalist forms, while maintaining a deterministic and instrumental conception of technology. In the Civil Engineering course, it was possible to identify four concepts of technology that directly dialogue with the concepts identified in the bibliography: technology as an instrument, as production, as a solution and as development. This analysis was made based on the relationship between engineering and the field of humanities, the close connection with the productive field and the ideas of sustainability and innovation. It was possible to observe in the institution a dual education in engineering, with an emphasis on a strictly technical education (technology) and an education from other fields of knowledge (humanism) that complements the first based on a relationship of utility. The documents provide glimpses of alternative ways of doing engineering but indicate the maintenance of education for the production process, adapted to the current demands for flexibility, competences, sociocognitive skills and environmental responsibility. By understanding the concepts of technology that underlie the education offered to UTFPR Civil Engineering students, the aim is to contribute to the discussion of an engineering education that enables a critical perspective and that integrates the elements of science, technology and society.