Written to complement civil engineers’ technical knowledge, this book explains the sociocultural contextual knowledge that civil engineers need if they are to be effective in their professions. Civil engineers design and build the world in which we all live. The decisions that they make can guide us toward a more sustainable society since the infrastructure that they create has a direct impact on how sustainably we are able to live. Sustainability is value-laden, however, and embedded within larger contexts. Whilst engineers are well versed in technical matters and the evaluation of physical contexts, their education often leaves out essential knowledge about the larger social, cultural, economic, historical, and political contexts in which they operate.

This book helps readers to understand contextual knowledge and why context matters—which is useful to engineering students and professionals who have found this topic absent from their education, who would like to understand contextual issues, and who would like to know why they should care. The book lays out essential sociocultural contextual knowledge for today’s civil engineers, relevant across a wide variety of workplaces.