Taste as an Analytical Lens for Students’ Interest in Technology Education

Abstract

This paper conceptually explores how students’ interest in technology may be examined in situ through the concept of taste. Drawing on a pragmatist–Bourdieuan perspective, taste is understood as socially learned and enacted judgement, through which feelings, cognition, and norms are intertwined in social interactions. Using illustrative examples from programming activities with robots, the paper shows how students’ and teachers’ distinctions concerning procedures, language use, and ways of being become visible in interaction. These distinctions orient action in relation to the purposes of the activity and highlight how moments of frustration, alignment, and closure contribute to students’ participation and emerging interest in technology.