AbstractThe National Curriculum for design and technology requires that the new subject be delivered in a cross‐curricular way, involving teachers from a number of previously‐existing subject areas. The negotiation by teachers of this new curriculum and its associated new subculture has taken place in a context in which struggles for power and control in the new departments form a significant factor. Associated with this struggle is the retreat by some teachers and departments into the subcultures of their originating subjects and thus further away from the integrated intentions of design and technology as developed in the Order and Non‐Statutory Guidance. The paper explores the concept of subcultural retreat as it applies in this situ