This document summarizes research into perceptions of the purpose and structure of Design and Technology (D&T) as a school subject in England. Interviews with students and D&T teachers at two schools found differing views on D&T's unique identity and purpose. Some saw it as teaching vocational skills for careers, while others emphasized general life skills. Teachers viewed D&T as developing specialized design knowledge and skills, while national policy saw it as having insufficient coherence as an academic subject. There remains debate around D&T's role in the curriculum and what constitutes its core body of knowledge.

1. An assortment box of views:
different perceptions of D&T’s
purpose and structure
Alison Hardy
Nottingham Trent University

2. Overview
• Context: National policy & subject change
• Knowledge & school subjects
• Research aim & method
• Findings: uniqueness of D&T, competency and skills, links to other
subjects
• Analysis: Disciplinary coherence, different selection box?

3. National policy
• A review of the National Curriculum in 2011
• D&T should only form part of a basic curriculum
• Content should be informed by local context (Department for Education,
2011)
• D&T has an insufficient disciplinary coherence
• A rewritten National Curriculum in 2013
• Introduction of the English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) - a new
performance measure for schools1

4. Disciplinary coherence & knowledge
• Strong, disciplinary coherent subjects
• Clear form of knowledge with facts and principles interpreted by the
government as traditional academic subjects, such as maths and science.
• Strongly defined boundary between itself and other subjects (Bernstein,
2000)
• Strongly defined knowledge, which is ‘sacred, … not ordinary or mundane’
(Bernstein, 2003, p.73)
• Powerful knowledge is not everyday knowledge or non-school knowledge
(Young & Muller 2013)
• ‘General, all-purpose knowledge’ (Hirsch, 2006, p.12)

5. D&TA campaigns
• D&T’s unique contribution:
• technological understanding
• design thinking
• evaluation of products & services
• skills for life

7. Research aim
• Interviews in two English schools asking ‘Why should D&T be taught in
school?’
• Students and two D&T teachers from each school
• Between March and May 2014, after the curriculum review and between
the two D&TA campaigns
Method: participants
• Show that the view of D&T of D&T teachers and pupils is also unclear
and therefore the subject has weak classification

8. Thematic coding
1. The uniqueness of D&T:
1. Defined in curriculum documentation
2. Vocational content that (could) lead to D&T related careers – economic
purpose
2. Competency or skills:
1. Generic skills
2. Domestic skills
3. Other subjects and their content
1. Knowledge from other subjects/ disciplines
2. Relationship with other subjects

9. Responses to all themes
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
D&T Competency & skills Other subjects
Students
D&T teachers
Total
D&T
Competency
& skills
Other
subjects
Students 29 34 4
D&T teachers 55 43 11
Total 84 77 15

10. Theme 1: Unique identity of D&T
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Vocational curriculum D&T National Curriculum
Students
D&T teachers
Total
Vocational
curriculum
D&T National
Curriculum
Students 18 11
D&T teachers 10 45
Total 28 56

11. Theme 2: Competency and skills
Ways of
learning
Being a citizen Skills for life
Students 0 1 33
D&T teachers 7 10 26
Total 7 11 59
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Ways of learning Being a citizen Skills for life
Students
D&T teachers
Total

12. Division of skills for life theme
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Skills to look after yourself Transferrable skills Personal development
Students
D&T teachers
Total
Skills to look
after yourself
Transferrable
skills
Personal
development
Students 22 6 5
D&T teachers 10 16 0
Total 32 22 5

13. Theme 3: Other subjects
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Learning about materials Links to other subjects
Students
D&T teachers
Total
Learning about
materials
Links to other
subjects
Students 0 4
D&T teachers 8 3
Total 8 7

14. Analysis (D&T, skills and knowledge)
• Uniqueness of D&T:
• 84 responses (D&T) c.f. 15 responses (other subjects)
• 56/84 – Critiquing products, impact on the world’s environment
• Mundane or generic knowledge and skills:
• 84 responses (D&T) c.f. 77 responses (competency & skills)
Teacher 1: I guess every design - well I would have thought every design has its purpose.
So you've got to think about how a product is going to be used [competency].
Facilitator: Does that come from D&T? Or is that something that D&T contributes?
Teacher 1: Yeah, I think it does because I think if they're looking at items and how they can
be modified and changed and developed and ripped apart and made again in a different
way [specialist knowledge]. Yeah, I think it does come from designing and D&T.’
An example of horizontal and vertical discourse (Bernstein 1999)

15. Analysis (D&TA campaign)
• Teachers: only 18% responses focus on D&T’s contribution to the
economy & STEM
• D&TA campaign: ‘D&T has much to offer across a wide
range of career paths in engineering, manufacturing and the creative
industries.'
• Students: 1/3 responses about skills for life, particularly learning how
to cook
• D&TA campaign: ‘young people develop a range of skills and personal
qualities which will support them through life – and are valued by
employers. These skills include independence, team working,
resilience, resourcefulness, risk taking and entrepreneurship.’

16. Conclusion
• Is D&T part of a general education?
• What is the ‘sacred’ and specialised D&T knowledge?
• Current students will be parents of future students – repeating the
same messages
• Teachers values need to be understood – subcultural retreat
(Paetcher 1995)

17. References
• Bernstein, B. (1999). Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education,
20(2), 157-173.
• Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique (Rev ed.). Lanham,
Maryland: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman and Littlefield.
• Bernstein, B. (2003). Class, codes and control vol.3: Towards a theory of educational transmissions
Routledge.
• Department for Education. (2011). The framework for the national curriculum. A report by the expert panel
for the national curriculum review. London: Department for Education.
• Design and Technology Association. (2015). Designed and made in Britain...? Retrieved from
http://bit.ly/1n1vm9J
• Hirsch, E. D. (2006). The knowledge deficit: Closing the shocking education gap for American children.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Paechter, C. (1995). Subcultural retreat: Negotiating the design and technology curriculum. British
Educational Research Journal, 21 (1), 75-87.
• Young, M., & Muller, J. (2013). On the powers of powerful knowledge. Review of Education, 1(3), 229-250.

18. Thank you
hardy_alison
Alison Hardy
alison.hardy@ntu.ac.uk
📧