Caught in an Epistemic Trap

Why Economic Justifications Fail Design and Technology Education

Abstract

Design and Technology (D&T) education in England occupies an increasingly precarious position within the school curriculum. In response to declining participation, reduced curriculum time, and policy marginalisation, recent and ongoing advocacy by the D&T Association (D&TA) has sought to secure the subject’s future through economic justification. D&T is positioned as essential to national productivity, industrial competitiveness, innovation, and labour market preparedness.

Drawing on Ball’s work on performativity and neoliberal policy (2003, 2012), the paper conceptualises economic justification as an ‘epistemic trap.’ It argues that in seeking legitimacy through economic rationality, Design and Technology accepts a mode of valuation that is expedient, volatile, and misaligned with educational purpose. This not only marginalises the subject’s intellectual foundations but accelerates the conditions of its potential decline.

The paper uses critical rhetorical analysis of a D&TA policy-facing advocacy document, whilst using Toulmin’s model of argumentation (Magalhaes, 2020) as a methodological framework, examining how economic claims are constructed, supported, and qualified. Particular attention is given to the strength of warrants and backing, the absence of meaningful qualification, and the reliance on industry authority. Using Toulmin’s framework, aligned with Ball’s (2003) concept of performativity, reveals how policy certainty, urgency, and measurability shape the argument, whilst Fricker’s (2007) work exposes the epistemic injustices that result.

The findings, based on rhetorical analysis, demonstrate that the economic argument relies on weak educational backing, authority substitution, and unqualified claims. This framing produces an epistemic injustice by deflating the credibility of the subject’s educational value, by obscuring D&T’s distinctive practices. Paradoxically, the more convincingly the subject aligns itself with economic rationality and success, the more it undermines its existing precarity. The paper concludes that long-term sustainability for D&T depends not on economic alignment, but on reclaiming epistemic autonomy and articulating educational value beyond performative metrics.