Exploring the 'Cultural Capital' of Design Educators

Abstract

Design students and practitioners commonly speak of how they have been influenced by their teachers throughout their studies. Sometimes these influences are described as being positive, where a design educator has acted to inspire and motivate students to replicate or enact design tasks, issues and values as their mentor would have. At other times a design educator has left a negative impression, where students find themselves acting against the teacher. This paper is not about students’ reaction to educators nor does it look at the relationship between both. It does, however, seek to investigate what is considered to be at the root of design education—the cultural capital of design educators. In doing so, this paper identifies three key themes relating to the cultural capital of eleven design educators from different geographical locations in the western world. These themes result from analyzing intimate narratives presented by the educators, which identify some of the values, beliefs and actions that are consciously and sometimes unconsciously being passed along to future designers.

status: published