A major difficulty faced by anyone wishing to research equal opportunities issues associated with National Curriculum design and technology lessons taught in a workshop environment is the paucity of literature available. However, new data from a recent LEA-sponsored initiative (Newley1 LEA 1995-1998) now provides additional material on the range of equality issues present in workshop-based teaching and interaction. The researcher’s role in the Newley Design and Technology Initiative (1995-98) was that of evaluator, and this paper describes the Initiative’s evaluation process and the research findings it produced. In so doing, it aims to inform the ongoing debate regarding gender issues in design and technology. It also provides teachers with practical information on strategies for evaluating aspects of their workshop-based teaching, which hopefully will encourage teacher-initiated research
