Proposal THE SOCIOLOGY OF INFORMAL LEARNING IN / ABOUT DESIGN

Design is a field that encompasses many disciplines and professions (e.g. engineering, arts and architecture, digital media, fashion design and others). But how are knowledge and identity specialized in the design field and within the different disciplines? When learning a professional trade, besides learning specific procedures to perform, one has to learn the “rules”, “processes” and “language” of the field. The understanding of such processes is essential – it is through these that one actually establishes a sense of what is a legitimate practice in a given field. This research draws on a development of Basil Bernstein’s sociology to analyze how those who are new to the design field learn about this specialized knowledge within an informal environment. The aims of the project are to investigate how new designers recognize and realize design practices within four sub-disciplines of design: engineering, architecture, digital media and fashion design; and to define and implement ways of supporting new designers’ inquiry through an ICT mediated learning environment. The expected contributions of this research include: (1) a model representing the underlying principles structuring knowledge within 4 design disciplines and strategies used by designers to recognize and realize legitimate practices; and (2) an informal elearning environment to experience design grounded on socio-educational concepts.