The Sociology of Conversion

Critical Analysis

The process of becoming a designer has similarities to converting to a new religion, particularly because of the strength with which new designers tend to state the importance of design—that design becomes not just a profession but a way of life, and a way of looking at the world. The elevated language of the output of design activities reinforces the parallels between design and religion, as design is often argued to be the underlying force of the artificial world. A deity may be responsible for designing the universe; designers, it is argued, are responsible for designing everything in it.

A demonstration event can be viewed as a sign of conversion, as with religious crusades as ritualized experiences; Snow and Machalek argue, however, that these are not signs of conversion and are instead responses to situational constraints (173). Critique is an example of demonstration in studio where students initially are simply responding to the structured educational experience. Particularly in beginning years of study, students are essentially forced into the demonstration of critique as an assumed part of the educational experience. They’ve had no opportunity to begin a purposeful form of conversion, other than electing to attend school and class in the first place.

Predominant theories of conversion indicate the changes in language are “more fundamental” than changes in beliefs and identities (170). These changes in language are the “displacement of one universe of discourse by another or the ascendance of a formerly peripheral universe of discourse to the status of a primary authority” (170). This is evidenced in studio in several ways. One is in the adoption of language of risk and failure, where students are urged to trade language (and subsequently, behaviors) of correctness for language of exploration. Failing, an idea that has had entirely negative connotations and often real punishment attached to it, is to be recast as something positive that is to be pursued. Language of critique and criticism are related, as “being critical” becomes a valued phrase.

Some conversion theorists argue that group membership is a questionable indicator of conversation, as it “ignores the commonplace observation that individuals can be members of the same group or movement in different ways” (171). An argument for peripheral participation, however, would explain this dual-membership and the likely inclusion of double voicing; students in studio are slowly progressing through a conversation towards membership into a group, and the use of designerly and non-designerly words is indicative of that transient state where they begin to feel qualified to leverage specific terms, even the phrase “I am a designer” itself. Conversion is a process of learning the correct approaches, and members are “frequently instructed to watch and listen to core converts recounting their respective experiences.” Instructors—those with professional experience—are those core converts, and their experiences are built on working in industry.

Language offers a way towards the adoption of a “master attribution scheme,” where “feelings, behaviors, and events formerly interpreted with reference to a number of casual schemes are now interpreted from the standpoint of one pervasive scheme” (173). Analogical reasoning is suspended, as things are no longer like other things but instead are characterized as being those other things; that is, critique is not like other forms of assessment but is assessment, and studio itself is not like a classroom—it is a classroom.

This attribution scheme occurs internally, too. I, as a student, am not like a designer—I am a designer, and that brings with it all of the group’s common causes and missions. The convert “enthusiastically avows his or her covert identity in nearly all interactional situations” (173), as a designer now is always a designer, not simply in a classroom. A student is constantly called upon to reiterate, explain, and substantiate this idea of self and the process they went through to achieve it, even while they are still in that achievement process.