Bildung is commonly represented in English with terms such as ‘character building’ or ‘character formation’. Advocates have argued that school education should prepare young people to be active citizens in society and capable of moral judgements, that education should be more than a utilitarian preparation for employment. This chapter argues that widespread and costly engineering failures are associated with the lack of serious engagement with socio-technical aspects of engineering in undergraduate education. Research has demonstrated that engineers practice their technical expertise within complex social and organizational environments for which few education programs provide significant preparation. The lack of industry experience and appreciation of socio-technical factors among engineering faculty staff impedes attempts to bridge this gap. In the meantime, it is possible to learn from observations on engineering practice related to the consequences of an education system focusing primarily on the technical knowledge required by engineers. We can see how education practices shape the expectations and habits of engineers and constrain their ability to perform in practice. The chapter suggests how education restructuring might be approached in a slow process of reform. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.
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