"Being Cultural" versus "Cultural Beings": General Design Education

Abstract

The design and design education professions—also known as the ‘making professions’—have a short history of conducting research, which can be understood as the process by which they establish their professional identity. There seems to be a shift in both the content of design and studio practice from solely creating products to thinking about design as a step towards improving society as a whole. This change is also seen in design education in primary and secondary education. The design professions’ justification of purpose, which is that design is a driving force in the development of an inclusive and sustainable society, is mirrored in the debate about the content and justification of design education in schools. However, schools across Europe outsource art and design education to external artists, which hasled to culture and creativity programmes. The decision to utilise outsourcing can be questioned in terms of how research shows that it can erode the national repertoire of values and impact the evaluation criteria and collective considerations attained through the knowledge, skills and attitudes formed in teacher-led workshop practice in design.