Abstract
There is increasing focus on community engagement and social design within South
African higher education institutions, but a clear understanding of these concepts is
yet to be fully developed. The aim of this study is to investigate design educators’
perceptions of undergraduate community engagement and social design projects at
the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA), University of Johannesburg (UJ),
focusing on how knowledge is constructed and contested in such projects. This
study employed a qualitative research approach and used an explorative case study.
As a means to contextualise community engagement and social design in South African
universities, a description of the webpages of faculties that offer art and design
undergraduate degrees at South African public universities is provided. Only six of
the twenty-six universities’ that had art and design faculty web pages have visibly
indicated aspects of community engagement and social design.
Convenience sampling was used to invite design educators from the Faculty of Art,
Design and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg to participate in a semi
structured interview. Interview data was analysed using thematic analysis. The
identified themes are discussed with reference to literature, as well as to Johnson
and Morris’ (2010) framework for critical citizenship education, which is used as the
theoretical framework for the study. Four primary themes were identified, namely;
similarities between the fundamental role of design and the aims of community
engagement; challenges experienced in community engagement and social design
projects; navigating power relations among the community, university and the
student, and design educators’ views on who holds knowledge. Participants shared
similar views on the role of design in society and the overall aims of community
engagement and mentioned their deep desire to engage directly and
collaboratively/collectively with communities in order to problem solve and improve
lives.
In drawing from the views of the participating design lecturers, I propose that existing
Art and Design Faculties consider the recommended guidelines provided in the
conclusion to the study for future community engagement and social design projects.
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KEYWORDS
community engagement; social design; design education; higher education; social
responsibility; knowledge partnership; collaboration.