“Technology, Design, and Society” (TDS) versus “Science, Technology, and Society” (STS): Learning Some Lessons

Abstract

A few years ago, I was talking about an examination entry by a sixteen-year-old pupil with his teacher. The pupil had designed and made a “panic alarm” in case he was attacked late at night. In a technical sense it was very well done indeed with proper consideration of the alarm’s weight, power supply, loudness, ease of action, and so on. If anyone had attacked that boy, everyone would have heard about it. I asked his teacher whether the pupil had considered the issue of why such an alarm was needed in his neighborhood. The teacher looked puzzled by the question as he obviously thought it irrelevant; why such a panic alarm was needed (in terms of the wider values exhibited by those in the pupil’s locality) was not part of the examination-marking scheme. However, I wondered if this alarm was the best solution to the problem he faced. Here was the dilemma. His school technology-examination regime did not give any credit for considering the values that impacted on the problem. However, by not considering why he was afraid at night due to few late-night buses or limited and poor street-lighting, his solution was, in some senses restricted. Maybe the sixteen-year-old could not do much himself about the wider context of supplying maybe free buses or better street-lighting. However, the well-crafted and technically sound panic alarm provided only a partial solution to the youth’s problem, as it certainly did not reduce his fear. In some ways, the merely “technical” solution increased it.