Abstract
The history of technology can play an important role in illuminating the fundamentals of technological change, but it is important that technology teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and researchers can be provided with good analytical tools for this purpose. In this article, we propose a model of techno-historical interplay, as a help in deciding what historical artefacts and systems should be included in technology curricula and teaching as well as in analyzing and conveying to students the fundamental issues of technological change. We want to emphasize particularly three points of importance in employing the model as a tool of analysis. First of all, it is crucial to decide what one wants the technologically literate student to know about technology and technological change. This should include an awareness of the historical and geographical contingency of any technology. Second, on the basis of this decision one should adapt the model as a tool for selecting relevant technologies. Third, the model should be applied as an instrument of analysis of the history of the selected technological artefacts or systems as well as theories of technological development.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The Swedish technology curriculum document is right now being revised, but it is likely that the history of technology will remain an important item even in the new one (Swedish Government Bill, Prop. 2008/09:87).
Both curriculum documents and previous research have been selected mainly to illustrate and construe the argument, not to be entirely complete or conclusive. There is also a slight overemphasis on Western countries, which reflects both language restrictions on the part of the authors and the fact that research in the history of technology and technology education has had such a focus until just recently, but the point of the article should nonetheless be clear (cf., for example, Edgerton 2006).
References
Berman, M. (1988). All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity. New York: Viking Penguin.
Bijker, W. E. (1995). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P., & Pinch, T. J. (Eds.). (1987). The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology. London : MIT Press.
Burke, P. (1992). History and social theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Callon, M. & Law, J. (1995). Agency and the hybrid collectif. South Atlantic Quarterly, 94(2), 481–508.
de Vries, M. J. (2001). The history of industrial research laboratories as a resource for teaching about science-technology relationships. Research in Science Education, 31, 15–28.
de Vries, M. J. (2005a). Teaching about technology: An introduction to the philosophy of technology for non-philosophers. Dordrecht: Springer.
de Vries, M. J. (2005b). 80 years of research at the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (1914–1994): The role of the Nat. Lab at Philips. Amsterdam: Pallas Publications.
de Vries, M. J. (2006). Technological knowledge and artifacts: An analytical view. In J. R. Dakers (Ed.), Defining technological literacy: Towards an epistemological framework (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Department of Education, Republic of South Africa. (2002). Revised national curriculum statement grades R-9 (Schools), technology, http://www.education.gov.za/Curriculum/GET/doc/technology.pdf. Accessed 11 Feb 2009.
Eco, U., & Zorzoli, G. B. (1963). The picture history of inventions: From plough to Polaris. New York: Macmillan.
Edgerton, D. (2006). The shock of the old: Technology and global history since 1900. London: Profile Books.
Ekman, T. (2003). Spår i vägen. Teknikval, politik och spårvägstrafik i Stockholm 1920–2002. Stockholm: Avd. för teknik- och vetenskapshistoria, Tekniska högskolan.
Ferguson, E. S. (1992). Engineering and the mind’s eye. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1972). Vetandets arkeologi. Köthen: Cavefors Bokförlag AB.
Galis, V. (2006). From shrieks to technical reports: technology, disability and political processes in building Athens metro. Linköping: Department of Technology and Social Change.
Gieryn, T. F. (1983). Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48(6), 781–795.
Gyberg, P. (2003). Energi som kunskapsområde–om praktik och diskurser i skolan. Linköping: Tema Teknik och Social Förändring.
Gyberg, P., & Hallström, J. (2009). Avslutning. In P. Gyberg & J. Hallström (Eds.), Världens gång–teknikens utveckling. Om samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Gyberg, P. & Lee, F. (2009). The construction of facts: Preconditions for meaning in teaching energy in Swedish classrooms. International Journal of Science Education, 1–17, iFirst Article, http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a912973496.
Hallström, J. (2002). Constructing a pipe-bound city: A history of water supply, sewerage, and excreta removal in Norrköping and Linköping, Sweden, 1860–1910. Linköping: Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University.
Hallström, J. (2009a). Systemteori och teknik. En introduktion till stora tekniska system. In P. Gyberg & J. Hallström (Eds.), Världens gång–teknikens utveckling. Om samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Hallström, J. (2009b). Technical knowledge in a technical society: Elementary school technology education in Sweden, 1919–1928. History of Education, 38(4), 455–474.
Hansson, S. (2002). Den skapande människan. Om människan och tekniken under 5000 år. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Hård, M., & Jamison, A. (2005). Hubris and hybrids: A cultural history of technology and science. New York: Routledge.
Hughes, T. P. (1983). Networks of power: Electrification in western society, 1880–1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hughes, T. P. (1986). The seamless web: Technology, science, etcetera, etcetera. Social Studies of Science, 16, 281–292.
Hughes, T. P. (1987). The evolution of large technological systems. In W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes, & T. J. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology. London: The MIT Press.
Hughes, T. P. (2004). Human-built world: How to think about technology and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ihde, D. (2006). The designer fallacy and technological imagination. In J. R. Dakers (Ed.), Defining technological literacy: Towards an epistemological framework (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ingelstam, L. (2002). System—att tänka över samhälle och teknik. Stockholm: Energimyndigheten.
Kaijser, A. (1986). Stadens ljus. Etableringen av de första svenska gasverken [City lights. The establishment of the first Swedish gasworks]. Linköping: Tema Teknik och Social Förändring.
Kaijser, A. (2004). The dynamics of infrasystems: Lessons from history. Paper presented at the Summer Academy 2004 “Urban infrastructure in transition: What can we learn from history”, Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture, Graz, Austria, http://www.ifz.tugraz.at/index_en.php/article/articleview/658/1/30/. Accessed 19 Feb 2009.
Kline, R. (1995). Construing “technology” as “applied science”: Public rhetoric of scientists and engineers in the United States, 1880–1945. Isis. An International Review Devoted to the History of Science and its Cultural Influences, 86(2), 194–221.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Layton, D. (1984). Interpreters of science: A history of The Association for Science Education. London: John Murray & The Association for Science Education.
Liedman, S.-E. (2001). Ett oändligt äventyr. Om människans kunskaper. Stockholm: Bonnier.
Lindqvist, S. (1987). Vad är teknik? In B. Berner & B. Sundin (Eds.), I teknikens backspegel. Antologi i teknikhistoria (pp. 11–33). Stockholm: Carlssons.
McCulloch, G., Jenkins, E., & Layton, D. (1985). Technological revolution? The politics of school science and technology in England and Wales since 1945. London: The Falmer Press.
Melosi, M. V. (2000). The sanitary city: Urban infrastructure in America from colonial times to the present. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Mills, S. (1997). Discourse. London: Routledge.
Ministry of Education, New Zealand. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum, http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/content/download/1108/11989/file/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum.pdf. Accessed 11 Feb 2009.
Nye, D. E. (2006). Technology matters: Questions to live with. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pearson, G., & Young, A. T. (Eds.). (2002). Technically speaking: Why all Americans need to know more about technology. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Petroski, H. (1992). The evolution of useful things. New York: Vintage.
Rasinen, A. (2003). An analysis of the technology education curriculum of six countries. Journal of Technology Education, 15(1), 31–47.
Säljö, R. (2005). Lärande och kulturella redskap. Om lärprocesser och det kollektiva minnet. Stockholm: Norstedts.
Scharff, R. C., & Dusek, V. (Eds.). (2003). Philosophy of technology: The technological condition: an anthology. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
Shapin, S. (1992). Discipline and bounding: The history and sociology of science as seen through the externalism-internalism debate. History of science; an annual review of literature, research and teaching, xxx, 333–369.
Skolverket. (2000). Kursplan för ämnet Teknik i grundskolan, http://www3.skolverket.se/ki03/front.aspx?sprak=SV&ar=0708&infotyp=23&skolform=11&id=2089&extraId=2087. Accessed 23 Apr 2008.
Staudenmaier, J. M. (1985). Technology’s storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric. Cambridge: Society for the History of Technology and the MIT Press.
Staudenmaier, J. M. (2001). Disciplined imagination: The life and work of Thomas and Agatha Hughes. In M. Thad Allen & G. Hecht (Eds.), Technologies of power: Essays in honor of Thomas Parke Hughes and Agatha Chipley Hughes. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Strömbäck, L. (1993). Baltzar von Platen, Thomas Telford och Göta kanal. Stockholm: Symposion.
Sundqvist, G. (2001). Bredbandspolitik. En tekniksociologisk analys av kommunala bredband. Göteborg: Avd. för humanteknologi och vetenskapsstudier, Göteborgs Universitet.
Swedish Government Bill, prop. (2008). 2008/09:87, Tydligare mål och kunskapskrav—nya läroplaner för skolan, http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/1454. Accessed 19 Feb 2009.
Vygotsky, L. (1994/1986). Thought and language. London: The MIT Press.
Williams, R. (2002). Retooling: A historian confronts technological change. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Winner, L. (1977). Autonomous technology: Technics-out-of-control as a theme in political thought. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Jonas Anshelm and the other participants in the TVOPP seminar at the Department of Technology and Social Change, May 2009, as well as Maria Svensson and participants in the Rockelstad summer seminar, June 2009, for many valuable comments and suggestions. The same goes for Dr. Vicki Compton who made several important suggestions for improvement.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hallström, J., Gyberg, P. Technology in the rear-view mirror: how to better incorporate the history of technology into technology education. Int J Technol Des Educ 21, 3–17 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-009-9109-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-009-9109-5