British Design and Technology: A Critical Analysis

A great deal of interest has been shown in the British National Design and Technology Curriculum. A number of English Design and Technology education leaders have visited this country and a small group of American technology educators make periodic trips to Britain to observe the curriculum in action. Many of the reports provided to Americans by these individuals suggest that the British have THE answer and that we are years behind the Brits (Bottrill, 1992). However, Americans who question the British model as the utopian answer are often dismissed as unenlightened conservatives trying to protect skill-based programs. This paper is based primarily on a review of Technology in the National Curriculum (National Curriculum Council, 1990) and a trip to England. This trip included discussions with a shire (county) technology leader, an in-service technology teacher trainer, a technology equipment representative, and over 25 technology teachers who work at all educational levels from infant to secondary schools. The teachers covered the spectrum from one person resisting curricular change to a number of groups expending considerable effort to implement the national curriculum. The sample was not a hand-picked group of success stories designed to show the curriculum only at its best, but represented a reasonable cross-section of the teaching and leadership ranks.