Extension course in Popular Engineering: a pedagogical experiment

Abstract

From the National Engineering and Social Development Meetings and the emergence of the Oswaldo Sevá Popular Engineering Network (REPOS), founded in 2014, emerged the need to create educational spaces that would enable engineering students and professionals to deepen and reflect on the performance with and for the popular classes. That’s how a free extension course, nationwide, held in its first edition, virtually, in 2021, was born. This article aims to present and analyze this experience of a Popular Engineering Course as a space for reflection and action. The authors of the article are also course coordinators, who bring their reports and perceptions from their experience with this first group, seeking to point out limits and possibilities based on the experience. As a result, it is evaluated that the course has allowed not only to create new imaginaries for engineering, but also to deepen the theoretical-methodological intersections between engineering and Popular Education. Although this deepening is limited by the restricted course load of training and the virtual format adopted due to the pandemic, the course joins the extension effort in engineering and the role of the university in transforming itself towards diversity and social justice.