Nondominant Students' Struggle for Legitimate Participation in a Laptop Classroom

• In Event: 60.065 - Decentering Dominant Discourses and Reimagining Privileged Spaces in STEM Education

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this study was to examine institutional structures and teaching practices that impacted how students from non-dominant ethnic, socioeconomic, and academically underachieving backgrounds participated in a one-to-one laptop classroom. Specifically, the study investigated the types of tasks students were asked to perform with technology, and how students responded to teacher-defined objectives, rules, divisions of labor, and legitimate participation during in-class activities.

Theoretical framework
This study borrows from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987) and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of “Communities of Practice” to frame participation in technology-based learning environments as a continuously negotiated range of dispositions between individuals and the sociohistorical context of activity. As elements of goal-driven activity change from context to context (i.e., objectives, mediating artifacts, rules of behavior, community, and the division of labor), so do the identities and social positions of the individuals participating in the activity. When considered through such a lens, legitimate participation in technology activities becomes more closely tied to relationships of power, privileged social practices, and the “structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1977) of institutions than mere access to 21st century learning tools. These structures have been shown to hold significant sway over non-dominant students’ technology practices in formal learning environments, and may or may not legitimize their interest- and friendship-driven practices with digital media (Ito, 2010).

Methods
This research utilized ethnographic methods to examine the social and historical context of technology activities in an introductory level, high school biology course. Specifically, the study considered tensions that emerged with regards to the role of technology across learning activities, and students’ dispositions towards technology use. Data analysis borrowed from activity systems analysis to identify the objectives, mediating artifacts, rules, divisions of labor, and community that constituted students’ technology use. Subsequent analysis examined tensions that affected the role of technology in learning activities. These tensions served to highlight issues that impacted the learning experiences of the focal participants.

Findings
Students undermined opportunities to take on authority during learning activities, and resisted accomplishing teacher-centered goals through both satisficing assignments and not fulfilling their division of labor. In response, the teacher invoked canonical methods of instruction, heavily regulating institutionally-defined rules regarding classroom technology use. This shifted technology’s role within activities from mediating student-centered learning objectives to mediating historically privileged forms of participation that reinforced the centrality of teacher authority and control. Findings suggest that barriers to non-dominant students occupying authoritative roles in activities may be exacerbated by the institutionalization of learning technologies.

Significance
Evidence that students continue to resist schooling in the face of opportunities for enhanced creative expression, access to information, and even to helpful assessment resources, implies a “digital divide” not in the types of technology literacy skills students acquire, but in the ways schooling privileges certain types of learning. This suggests that schools should consider how technology can be used to ameliorate barriers for all students to take on authority over their own learning, and how classroom-based activities can make use of technology to support students’ interest-driven, self-regulated learning practices.

Author

• Nicholas C. Wilson, Stanford University