Setting a New Course or Stepping Out of Line? Challenges to Previously Disconnected Theoretical Fields in a Danish Profession-Oriented Higher Education Context

At the time when I initiated my PhD project I was fortunate enough to have become simultaneously part of a research alliance working with engineering education. Its mission was to qualify engineering education institutions to reform in order to provide engineers more adequately trained for tackling societal challenges and fulfilling a responsible role in societal development. My colleagues in the alliance were high-ranking researchers mainly based in different engineering education institutions in Denmark. They had ambitions about influencing engineering education and engineering curriculum development in a positive and fruitful direction which contributed to a motivating ambience. However, as a newcomer to the field of engineering and engineering education, having originally graduated from the arts and humanities and later transplanted myself in the social sciences, I felt a frustrating lack of secure theoretical ground under my feet.