Negotiating digital marginalization: Immigrants, computers, and the adult learning classroom

ABSTRACT

The discourse of the digital divide continues to shift from questions of physical access to questions of empowerment and equality. Implicit in this shift is the need to make sense of technology use within marginalized communities, prompting the central question of this study: What happens to marginalized individuals after they gain digital access, and importantly, training? To explore this question, I observed and assisted a group of 18 mostly transnational, Latina individuals during a five-month long computer class in Newark, New Jersey. The study positions computers as a kind of “boundary object” existing as a material thing embedded within associated systems, local meanings, and practices as interpreted by the researcher. The voices and experiences of the classroom participants are examined through cross-disciplinary theoretical frameworks drawn primarily from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and a specific transnational study. Thus, the article makes a contribution to the field of Communication by bringing these theoretical concepts into conversation with pedagogical ethnography and Internet Communication Technologies (ICT).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ All names in this study have been changed to protect confidentiality.

² I use the term “immigrant” when referring to study participants the way they refer to themselves and the term “transnational” or migrant when conducting analysis through theoretical frameworks that highlight the artificial, constructed quality of nation-states and the socio-political implications of hegemonic systems.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the original report upon which this article is based was provided by the New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Dr. Todd Wolfson, Rutgers University, P.I.