The study investigates appropriate approaches to new curriculum development and educational practice at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).This is necessary in order to ensure success of the multi-cultural student body and facilitate the creation of ethical and culturally unique design solutions by the Bachelors of Technology (BTech) Fashion and Surface Design learners at CPUT.

By using the research dissertations and studio work of six learners as examples, possibilities of best practice and challenges with regard to this diverse context are highlighted, as the success of these learners in the 2006 BTech programme is analysed in a qualitative manner.

The study concludes that different approaches to learning are used when culturally diverse learners engage with the design curriculum, and that cultural ways of knowing and embodied knowledge are powerful determinants of preferred learning styles which ultimately impact on learner success. The study identifies that the secondary discourse approach, when linked to other learning approaches, can make a valuable contribution to the learners design process, and by extension to the troubled South African context since it includes a sense of creative knowledge as behavioural and ethical mediator.