The cosmopolitan engineering student: an analysis of a recruitment campaign for KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm

• Published in: International journal of technology and design education Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 787 - 802
• Main Author: Kingdon, Patricia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.09.2018; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Case Studies; Colleges & universities; Cosmopolitanism; Education; Educational Philosophy; Educational Technology; Engineering; Engineering Education; Foreign Countries; Gender; Gender patterns; Global Approach; Government; Governmentality; Graduate Students; Higher education; Learning and Instruction; Lifelong Learning; Masters Programs; Metropolitan Areas; Profitability; Program Descriptions; Recruitment; Recruitment to higher education; Recruitment to technology universities; Science Education; Student Recruitment; Students; Sustainability; Technology assessment; Technology Education; Universities; Young adults; Sweden; Sweden (Stockholm); Stockholm Sweden; Cosmopolitanism; Recruitment to higher education; Lifelong learning; Governmentality; Recruitment to technology universities; Gender patterns
• ISSN: 0957-7572; 1573-1804; 1573-1804
• DOI: 10.1007/s10798-017-9405-4

This paper presents a study that seeks to examine the messages conveyed in one of the initiatives that have been initialized in order to make young people interested in pursuing engineering studies at technological universities. The study is a case study of the web-based advertising (recruitment) campaign KTH from the Inside designed for KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The analysis draws on a theoretical framework from governmentality studies. The analysis of the campaign conclude that the ideal engineering constructed in the campaign is one of an individual who meets the requirements asked of a lifelong learner with cosmopolitan aspirations. This is an ideal that builds on a notion of progress associated with social progress and sustainability. This is a break with historical and cultural patterns, which symbolically have linked technology to capitalist profitability and masculinity. Though a break with gender patterns is suggested the ideal subject constructed in the campaign is almost exclusively based on the students on Masters’ level. This excludes students at Bachelor programmes. This I argue is problematic as it narrows the recruitment of students to technological universities to a small group of students.