Technacy education: towards holistic pedagogy and epistemology in general and indigenous/cross-cultural technology education

Abstract

This paper consolidates a brief history of Western, particularly NSW, technology education. The paper asserts the case for a creative leap from convention in technology education paradigms apparent in much of Australian schooling and tertiary teacher courses. Technical education transfer issues in the Indigenous Australian context are presented that highlight serious theoretical flaws to resolve before one can assert the inclusion of technology subjects as core to educational (as opposed to vocational) development. There is a need to develop not only the pedagogical but also the epistemological basis to technology studies in schooling. Without this depth of understanding the field of technology education has little hope of meeting its potential as an equal in its standing to that of the traditional subjects such as Mathematics, English or Science