Reconceptualizing Architectural Education for a More Diverse Future: Perceptions and Visions of Architectural Students: Fid-Bau Portal

Reconceptualizing Architectural Education for a More Diverse Future: Perceptions and Visions of Architectural Students

Groat, Linda N. / Ahrentzen, Sherry

This article argues that the field of architecture must engage diversity in two senses of the word simultaneously: both in terms of its demographic composition and in terms of the substantive domain of architecture. Increasing the participation of women and minorities in the field should also mean increasing the substantive domain of the profession, and vice versa. We substantiate this argument within the realm of architectural education through a research study involving nearly 650 students at six different architecture schools. The purpose of the study was to investigate the ways in which both the content and the form of architectural education might impede or support the progress of women and minority students. In particular, we focus on three aspects of the “hidden curriculum”: studio pedagogy; social dynamics; and ideals and expectations. We find that women and members of some ethnic groups (particularly African-Americans and Latinos) do tend to experience the social dynamics and pedagogical practices of their educational milieu differently, often more negatively, than their male or majority counterparts. Our findings also reveal that many women and minorities feel that their career goals may be mismatched with the profession as it is currently defined. To the extent that our school programs ignore the dynamics of the hidden curriculum, not only might we be turning away potentially talented students, but we might be crippling a profession that must operate in a rapidly changing cultural and economic context. In that regard, we believe that all students will benefit from a collective reassessment of architecture's pedagogical conventions and of the definitional scope of the field.