ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the capability approach in order to demonstrate how it functions to help conceptualize changes that might be needed within universities to improve the contribution that engineering education makes to social justice. The chapter discusses methodologies that have been used to generate lists of educational capabilities in higher education research, and proposes a capabilities-inspired, ideal-theoretical framework for public-good engineering based on empirical data. It also provides a summary of the research on which this book is based and contextualizes the research setting. This chapter builds on Chapter 1 by showing how emerging ideas from the capability approach might inform a theoretical framework for engineering education geared towards sustainable human development. More specifically, four dimensions of education are outlined and used as a basis for theorizing the potential of universities to cultivate public-good engineers. The chapter also applies the capability approach to higher education research and describes the process of developing ideal-theoretical lists of educational capabilities. It ends with a preliminary framework of educational capabilities for public-good engineering.
