Design, Desire, and Dif ference

ABSTRACT

In response to the rise in popularity of concepts of “design” in education research, pedagogy, and curriculum design, in this article we consider how the New London Group conceived of the role of student design practices as an outcome of pedagogy, as well as the parallel role of design in teaching practices. In this descriptive analysis, we foreground the function and presence of meta-language for the practices of students and teachers. We follow the parallels that are played out, in the pedagogical vision by New London, between students using a metalanguage to design texts and teachers using a metalanguage to design the contexts and experiences of students. We argue that although design is oriented toward something usable— the object made or produced— desire and difference show up as the life in the process itself. We move from an outline of design into a discussion of the role of desire and difference in pedagogy, and especially within the teacher-student relationship. We sketch how desire and difference, as interpreted through Deleuze and Guattari and others answers different questions and provides different resources for understanding pedagogy. Taken up together, the registers of design, desire, and difference breathe more life into teacher practice and student practice as relational: the differences created in their contact zone offer a rich and productive image of pedagogy.

Additional Resources

1. Hagood, M. A rhizomatic cartography of adolescents, popular culture, and constructions of Self. In K. M. Leander and M. Sheehy (Ed.), Spatializing literacy research and practice. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 143-160.

Hagood develops two contrastive case studies to show how adolescents make use of popular culture in constituting their subjectivities. Hagood illuminates the value of Deleuze-Guattarian rhizoanalysis, as a form of spatial mapping, for understanding how adolescents can use pop culture to cast remarkably different relationships to a powerful form of identification (in this case, Christianity).

2. Kaustuv, R. Teachers in nomadic spaces. (2003). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Kaustov develops an extended case study in which he relates the process of becoming a teacher in an urban school to Deleuze’s philosophy. Kaustov builds a case for the productive power of difference in new teacher experimentation that allows release from a Platonic hold on curriculum as recovery and representation.

3. Leafgren, S. (2009). Reuben’s fall: A rhizomatic analysis of disobedience in kindergarten. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Leafgren’s study of children’s disobedience in kindergarten offers multiple ways teachers might consider and respond to children’s acts. As an example of Deleuzo-Guattarian inspired research, she understands the assemblic or emergent nature of unfolding events to require a non-linear and non-causally determined analysis.

4. Sherbine, K. and Boldt, G. (2013). Becoming intense. In F. McArdle and G. Boldt, (Editors), Young children, pedagogy, and the arts: Ways of seeing. New York, NY: Routledge, 73-88.

This chapter offers an accessible, Deleuzo-Guatarrian analysis of a second grade classroom in which the teacher’s vision of teaching and learning changed as she paid close attention to the children’s passion for the online, multiplayer game, Poptropica (http://www.poptropica.com/).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin M. Leander

Kevin M. Leander is at the Department of Teaching and Learning, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.

Gail Boldt

Gail Boldt is at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Penn State University, State College, PA.