Prophetic Pragmatism, Digital Literacies, and Design-Based Educational Research With Black Faith Communities (Poster 23)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 5:25 p.m.
  In Poster Session: Resisting Marginalization: Narratives of Black Student Persistence and Empowerment Across Educational Spaces

Abstract

Black protestants are proportionally more likely to attend church online than church members of other races and denominations. This provides opportunities to design experiences that support community-building online and the digital literacies of church members. However, there has been little research conducted on the design of online services for Black faith communities and what design-based research (DBR) methodologies would be supportive of these communities. Pragmatism has been suggested as a philosophy that underpins DBR in education, but has fallen short in explicitly engaging in cultural criticism, particularly in regards to race. We propose Cornel West’s concept of prophetic pragmatism as the solution to this problem. It offers race-conscious visions of action for researchers and the communities in which they work.

Authors

• Brooke Starks, Michigan State University

• Michael L. Lachney, Michigan State University