Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

With this study, we are investigating a dialectic between traditional design education and inclusivity. We consider design education “traditional” when pedagogy is primarily aimed at individual students completing instructor-determined assignments, while segregated in studios on campuses, away from their families, friends, and students in other disciplines. Isolating students as they learn conflicts with their integration more fully on campus and in society. And therein lies the rub. Today, the academy seems to value and encourage student enrollment from under-represented minority groups. However, these students are expected to assimilate to traditional design education culture, rather than institutions and instructors expanding practices to be inclusive of diverse values, attitudes, and beliefs. Current required shifts in modes of teaching- specifically hybrid and online design studios- further amplify this tension. We argue that design educators need to recognize and then implement ever-more social, - indeed sociable - processes that invite disparate constituencies. Following an imperative to collaborate that extends well beyond the domain of professional hierarchies, interactions, and working in design teams, we advocate challenging the isolation of designers in studios. Change extends to broader contextual domains discoverable in how we communicate, collaborate, and recognize inherent agency. We advocate for studio cultures that reflect diverse social structures, that recognize a politic of design that plays through tensions between historical roles and contemporary expectations.