A Sense of Purpose: Approaching CDT through Social Issues

Abstract

In an earlier issue of the j oumal one of us (Grant, 1982) outlined an approach to the CDT curriculum which the Gate (Girls and Technology Education) project believes to offer the best hope of demonstrating the relevance of a design and technology education to the majority of girls who currently reject the subject area at the earliest opportunity. It was argued that too little attention is given to the values component of the design process (i.e. the questions of ethics, moral judgements, social implications and technology policies that underlie all technological decision-making in the real world) and research evidence was quoted which indicates that many girls (for whatever reason) would be more likely to continue their study in this subject area if these questions and issues were seen to be given the same importance as the technical solutions to design problems.