Design Education as a Catalyst for Change

Designers play a role in shaping our world, both literally and figuratively. Human lives are spent interacting with designed artefacts, systems, and processes. From this perspective, designers could be considered examples of Gramsci’s definition of intellectuals: the people who organize society and define or reinforce the cultural hegemony of the dominant class (Gramsci, 1989). If we accept this account, then what role does education play in instilling hegemonic values in designers? And could changes in design education help to foster counter-hegemonies? Put differently, if designers really do shape the world, and if education shapes designers, then could design education serve as a “leverage point” for achieving broad social change? Scholarship in the field of science and technology studies (STS) tells us that the relationship between technology and society is not a simple one: neither pure technological determinism (the idea that technology shapes society) nor pure social constructivism (the idea that society shapes technology) is accurate. Rather, technology and society “co-produce” each other (e.g. Bijker et al., 2012). It seems reasonable to expect that a similar model of co-production could be used to understand the relationships between design education, design practice, and social changes.