In this podcast episode, Alison discusses inclusive research practices and the significance of diversity within design and technology (D&T) education. Drawing from her conversation with Sarah Davies, Alison emphasises the inclusion of children as active participants and the importance of their work as valuable data in research. Additionally, she underscores the need to consider ethnicity, gender, and other aspects of diversity in research to ensure representation and inclusivity.
Alison also promotes building research networks, providing practical tips for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Ciaran Ellis posted a thought-provoking question on LinkedIn recently: Do design decisions involve value judgements?
What do you think? Join the conversation over on LinkedIn and let us know what you think.
If you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'
Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Threads @hardy_alison or by emailing me.
If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show.
If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here.
If you are not able to support me financially, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Alison Hardy:
I've been reflecting on the episode with Sarah, when Sarah was talking about peer review and some of the themes that were coming out from the PAC conference, and what it got me to thinking was about a couple of aspects that were relevant. One was about inclusive research practice, about how and who do we include in research, who does it, who is part of the research, who presents, who's visible in that research. And one of the things that I've noticed, and Sarah and I noticed when we were looking at the PAC papers as a whole, is that the few papers that actually, or the few research that's published, or the little research all of that language is really bad, but I'm sure you can forgive me that actually involves children. Now, what I mean by this is in terms of there's quite a bit done, or there used to be done, asking children about their opinions, their perceptions, about the work that they were doing, but there hasn't been so much actually looking at the work that the children are doing and analysing it in the context of people's progression. Or are they gaining and using the knowledge that they've been learning in design and technology? Or how effectively are they communicating their design ideas? So I think that's for me that's a real area, that if you're somebody in design and technology looking to do some research and you're questioning which way to go and you've kind of got this drive about inclusivity, then I would say, don't forget the children, don't forget to include them as participants, but also their work as data and, as I said, looking at their work.
Alison Hardy:
Now, I think that's for a number of different reasons. One is about inclusivity because, let's face it, surely what we're teaching is a subject that we're wanting to empower children to improve their D&T capability and their ability to interact and be part of the made world, the technologically developed world and that reason that we're technologically developed that phrase in a very ambiguous way and leaving it open for interpretation. But there's also thinking externally about having evidence to show about the impact of classroom practices on children, not just for the teachers that are doing that research and the researchers, but also for other communities who say there's no research in D&T. Well, actually, let's build up this body of research that involves children. I think that's something that's really important. Then the second aspect about inclusivity is about diversity in terms of ethnicity and gender.
Alison Hardy:
I did a book chapter with Bav Pradjapat and Rose Sinclair in the debates in design and technology, built on some of the podcasts I've done about decolonising the D&T curriculum and I think sometimes researchers and that can be classroom based researchers, people who research as it's their work they don't always think about the ethnicity of the participants or their ethnicity or their gender and what impact that might have on the way that they are collecting the data. Looking at the data I have the privilege of reviewing papers for the International Journal for Design and Technology Education as well as the Design and Technology Education International Journal I am saddened, surprised, unsurprised, by how rarely the ethnicity of the participants is demonstrated, is given. I think that is an important factor because I think, as we become, we're moving into a place where we're recognising much more about understanding people's differences and the impact that they have on the way they view the world and they interact with the world and feel part of the world. Well, if ethnicity is silent in the research that we're doing in design and technology, then that's perpetuating the idea possibly that or the idea that is possible that design and technology is only for people who are whites, rather than people of colour and people of different ethnicities, which is again why I included another chapter in the Debates Book by Misha Gunbar about Indigenous technologies, because there are other ways of thinking about technology than the Western white way.
Alison Hardy:
So, again, if you're doing any research, I'd look at your participants and say are they representative of society? Am I including voices of people from diverse range of backgrounds and I'm being very simplistic there around ethnicity and gender, but there's also socioeconomic, there's disability, there's sexuality, there's all of that which adds a richness. Now, sometimes people might say, well, that's not always appropriate for the research, but I think if you indicate it in your data sample maybe not so much around socioeconomic background or education level or sexuality, but some of the other aspects, maybe around inclusion and equality, around gender and ethnicity then that is demonstrating that you are including and hearing different voices. So if you're a reader of research, I'd have a look and I'd challenge the authors and I wouldn't be concerned about contacting the authors and asking them and saying you're interested because you want to have an understanding about whether their participants represent you, the community that you work in, and whether that, therefore, their research is as useful as it could be for your location. Because I think that's what researchers want, is they want researchers to have an impact. So research is being inclusive. I think is important.
Alison Hardy:
And then the other point that I was thinking about with Sarah's conversation was around research networks and building networks for yourself, about who's doing research and building up that community. So if you're inexperienced in research and you want to do some, then find somebody who's done some and say can we work on this? I've got an idea, can we talk about it? Contact the author of a published paper and say can we have a coffee? I'm really interested about how you've done this. I'd like to build on your work.
Alison Hardy:
I did that with one of my students, emma Hallam, a few years back now. She was looking at developing children's sketching ability and their confidence in sketching and I put her in touch with Dermot Lane, who's a colleague in Ireland who does some really fascinating work working with student teachers and teachers about developing their communication skills in terms of sketching. You hadn't come from that background and he did a whole load of interventions to develop that and Emma actually modified some of that to use with her year sevens and we did see a difference. And I said to Emma contact Dermot. The worst he'll say is no. And in actual fact he said yes, you know they had some email conversation. That helped clarify. So I really would encourage you that if you're thinking about doing research or you've read a paper that you're interested in or you've read a blog post, then contact the author. They're just normal people like you. They've just done this piece of work that you're interested in and say can we have a chat and explain? This is why you're interested.
Alison Hardy:
So there's a couple of challenges that I'm laying out there. Following on from Sarah's episode is, first of all, thinking about inclusive research practices how can you enhance diversity, equity and inclusion in research. And then, secondly, building your own research network. There's a couple of tips there about how to do that. Hopefully that's helpful. If you've got any questions or comments or you've read something of mine and you want to challenge me, or you say, alison, you didn't talk about ethnicity in your research, then please do reach out, do contact me. I'm always open for debates and a virtual cup of coffee sometimes. Thanks for listening.