Design as Discourse in (and Well Beyond) STEM

• In Event: Disrupting "Designs" in Literacy Research and Practice

Abstract

How did the discourse of “design” take shape, in its associations with STEM and its expansion into education, particularly literacy? How did “design” come to be, as a concept, and through what relations? This paper addresses these questions through genealogical inquiry and an illustrative case. Examining how the discourse of design sometimes works against its own stated purposes, we also articulate possibilities for how “design” could be configured otherwise.
In this paper, we draw on science and technology studies (Harding, 2008) and sociohistorical literacy studies (Street, 1995), complementary traditions that attend to the ways knowledge and practice emerge from contingent historical processes. Building on scholarship that brings these frames into conversation (Brandt & Clinton, 2002) and that considers the place of “design” in literacy education (Author, 2018), we take a genealogical perspective, mapping “design’s” disparate lineages in STEM (engineering, computer science), education (construction, experiential learning), business (usability, product engineering), and political economy (innovation and entrepreneurship). We then explore how components of these traditions are braided together in contemporary design discourses by examining their imbrication in a situated context: the literacy classroom of a public high school organized around design-thinking. Our findings suggest there are guiding assumptions in design’s uptake: that it (1) is a transferable process that works across disciplinary tasks and objectives; and (2) proceeds incrementally, via iteration, toward some telos (a product, end-user, refined understanding). From this perspective, we suggest that while design is highly adaptable, its core assumptions make it suited for very specific kinds of educational activities, and unsuited for others. We argue that “design” be understood as one piece of a larger repertoire of inquiry practices -- a framing with implications for how we might delimit its uses in literacy teaching and learning.

Authors

• Kevin M Leander, Vanderbilt University

• T. Philip Nichols, Baylor University