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The Art and Design of Counterhegemonic Technology Integration

Mon, April 8, 4:10 to 6:10pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: Mezzanine, Chestnut East

Abstract

We present a model of counterhegemonic technology integration that resists the reproduction of dominant STEM discourses and practices prevalent in formal and nonformal learning settings. As such, this model counters representations of STEM that historically exclude nondominant cultural practices and technologies. Using data from a multi-year ethnographic study, we theorize the implementation and design process of a counterhegemonic out-of-school STEM program for nondominant youth, which seeks to decolonialize STEM at the local community level. We approached our project by asking two main questions: (1) what aspects of technologies are able to reflect identities and cultures of non-dominant students and (2) what are culturally consequential technologies and teaching practices in our local community silenced by dominant educational spaces? Our search for culturally relevant technologies and definitions of STEM lead us to a portable synthesizer workstation, because, next to its unique design, historically, musicians (often scientists and academics) and instruments straddle the fuzzy lines between art, science and technology (Pinch & Bijsterveld, 2003; Smith, 1970). Weaving together community-based research methods and program design, this project opens up identity resources (Nasir & Cooks, 2009) and culturally relevant definitions that are unavailable in dominant conceptions of STEM (Gutiérrez, 2007; Nasir & Hand, 2008). As such our program design is influenced by electronically mediated music (in particular hip hop and rap music), its hardware, practices (especially sampling) and culture bearers in the hip hop and rap communities. Examining the connections between cultural and technological practices in the context of rap, Tricia Rose (1994) counters dominant conceptions of STEM making visible its cultural significance and sociohistorical context: “…rap music is a technological form that relies on the reformulation of recorded sound in conjunction with rhymed lyrics to create its distinctive sounds. Rappers bring black cultural priorities to bear on advanced technology…Rap technicians employ digital technology as instruments, revising black musical styles and priorities through the manipulation of technology.” In this paper, we discuss initial findings from a community-based design research project (Bang, et al., 2015) that privileges identities, social realities, cultures, and communities of nondominant youth in the context of STEM. Using case studies from the project implementation in an out-of-school summer program focused on high-school youth (11th grade) who are historically underrepresented in STEM, we focus our discussion on several interdependent processes that desettle expectations in STEM (Bang, Warren, Roseberry & Medin, 2013; Harris, 1995) and make this technology integration model counterhegemonic: (1) centering sociohistorical, local and individual contexts of nondominant youth, (2) resistance to centering technology, (3) privileging nondominant forms of knowing, cultural practices and technologies to decolonialize STEM curriculum and the integration process (Rogoff, 2003), (4) transgressing and hybridizing dominant places of learning (Cresswell, 1996; Tan & Calabrese-Barton, 2012) and, (5) viewing technology integration as participating in community discourse, narratives and texts. Centering technology is integral to hegemonic notions of STEM education. Our model decenters technology and reframes technology integration as a sociocultural, narrative process that positions cultural practices, cultural tools and culture bearers of nondominant youth—i.e., identity resources—deep within STEM.

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