VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

Cultural sensitivity is often treated in design education as a desirable outcome or transferable competence. This paper argues instead that it is pedagogically produced, and that its meaning shifts across institutional and sociocultural contexts. Focusing on studio-based fashion design education in mainland China, London, and Hong Kong, it examines how cultural context is framed and taught within different educational settings. The study adopts a qualitative comparative approach, drawing on curriculum structures, project briefs, and critique practices from selected fashion design programmes in the three locations. Informed by sociocultural learning theory and scholarship on culturally responsive design, it examines how cultural knowledge is framed within studio pedagogy and how students are positioned to engage with it through design processes. The comparison suggests three pedagogical formations. In mainland China, cultural context is commonly organised through structured frameworks that align studio learning with the reinterpretation of national heritage. In London, it is more often mobilised through critical inquiry and experimental practice. In Hong Kong, cultural engagement is shaped by a hybrid educational condition in which regional traditions and British pedagogical legacies intersect. The paper contends that cultural sensitivity in design education is not a neutral pedagogical objective but an effect of historically and institutionally situated teaching practices. Comparative analysis, therefore, does more than map regional differences; it clarifies how fashion design pedagogy constructs cultural awareness, and offers a basis for rethinking studio education in culturally diverse learning environments.