Designing for the Future: Latine Mothers’ Imagined Technologies for Family Learning

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 3:45 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Learning Where we Live: Reimagining STEM Through Community Practices

Abstract

Educational technologies often overlook the cultural values, practices, and lived experiences of minoritized communities, including Latine families (Blinded for Submission, 2024; Blinded for Submission, 2025). As a result, designers’ goals and expectations can overshadow local knowledge and cultural values and practices (Rosner et al., 2016). In response, this study contributes to strengths-based research by examining Latine families’ everyday STEM learning and technology use. Drawing on speculative design methods (Dunne & Raby, 2013) and the Funds of Knowledge framework (Moll et al., 1992), we explore how Latine mothers articulate cultural values through imagined technologies that reflect their lived experiences and aspirations.
Ten Latine mothers were recruited from our community partner, Blinded for Submission, a nonprofit organization that fosters positive early childhood development. Participants ranged in age from 30 to 47 and had between 2 and 7 children, with an average child age of 11 years. All mothers were born outside the United States (e.g., Mexico and Guatemala) and are Spanish speakers. Interviews were conducted and analyzed in Spanish. The semi-structured protocol was designed to allow for flexibility and futuring, inviting participants to reflect on how technologies could be embedded in community spaces to foster family STEM learning. Using thematic analysis and an inductive coding approach (Saldaña, 2016), we identified four key codes: (1) collective learning, (2) equity in engagement, (3) respecting shared spaces, and (4) digital safety (see Table 1).
Findings highlight how Latine mothers envision technologies that center family STEM learning, equity, and safety. Participants emphasized collective learning through co-use and intergenerational participation, imagining tools that bring families together. Equity in engagement emerged in descriptions of children collaborating or taking turns, reflecting values of fairness and inclusion. Respecting shared spaces appeared in Latine mother’s imagined public uses of technology that encourage consideration for others. Digital safety was a central concern, with mothers prioritizing protections for children’s identity, privacy, and exposure to harmful content. Together, these themes illustrate how Latine mothers embed cultural values into speculative design, offering insight for creating educational technologies that are relational, ethical, and grounded in lived experience.
Using a strengths-based lens, this study centers Latine mothers’ voices and challenges deficit-based narratives that have historically shaped educational research and technology design. When invited to imagine the future of STEM learning, Latine mothers offer creative, culturally rooted ideas that promote equity and care in design. Future steps involve applying these findings to the design of a culturally sustaining mobile application that not only provides joyful STEM games, but fosters intergenerational learning. Ultimately, this research contributes to broader efforts to co-design technologies with communities, rather than merely for them, highlighting the knowledge, values, and aspirations Latine families bring to shaping technologies that honor cultural practices, foster STEM learning, and nurture intergenerational connection.

Authors

• Julie Salazar, University of California - Irvine

• June Ahn, University of California - Irvine

• Andres Sebastian Bustamante, University of California - Irvine