Creativity, Culture and Citizenship in Primary Design and Technology

This paper draws upon research undertaken in response to three themes that have assumed a growing importance in curriculum debate and official documentation in recent years. The publication of All Our Futures - Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE, 1999) was hailed as a reaction against an increasingly narrow, subject-bound curriculum, and the inclusion of Citizenship within Curriculum 2000 (DfEE/QCA, 1999) signalled the UK government's commitment to a broader educational agenda. The meanings of these terms and the political agenda driving the change are, of course, open to question. Yet, we argue, their relevance to primary design and technology is considerable, though as yet largely unexplored. Using case studies of typical design and technology projects gathered over the past year, we draw out significant strands of creativity, culture and citizenship that have hitherto been implicit in primary practice.