| Summary: | Technology education in North America has been almost exclusively a
male phenomenon. Technology education continues to be taught by males to
predominantly males. In addition to excluding females, technology education
excludes students from various ethnic, cultural, social and academic groups.
Recent revisions of technology education curricula have attempted to address
these Inequities. The resulting curricula are purported to be relevant to all
students and appropriate to the needs of society. This thesis analyzes the
extent to which curricular revisions address the inequities and appropriateness
of technology education curricula. My analysis shows that the revised
curricula are neither suitable for nor relevant to the needs of most students.
Revised curricula support a hegemonic devotion to the 'device paradigm' which
permeates much of North American culture, and such hegemony Is a barrier to
the development of a form of technological literacy which may empower
students to influence rather than simply participate in technological
developments. The curricula examined do not explicate the paradigms In
which they are situated, nor do they address fundamental questions such as:
What purpose should education serve in society? and. What role should
technology education play in education generally?
Paradigms of traditional and current technology education curricula are
identified and elements of critical, Freirian and feminist pedagogy are proposed
as promising ways of countering hegemony in education. Since other academic
areas may well suffer from similar inequities, and may share the hegemony of
technology education, the issues raised In this thesis may be generalizable to
other subject areas in education.
|
|---|
