Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media
Everett, Anna (ed.) (2008).
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; 197 pages. $16. ISBN 9780262550673.
The scope of digital technology in Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media covers an exciting and varied range of subject matter. Anna Everett’s table of contents lists 27 topics ranging from minority myths and alternative epistemology to nontraditional learning environments and online social networks. Most of these chapters are well-written and represent current and thorough research on the part of the specific author.
The book is divided into three parts: Future Visions and Excavated Pasts; Oppositional Art Practices in the Digital Domain; and New Digital Archetypes: Cyber Hate, Online Gaming, and E-Health. Each section includes two to three chapters by authors from across the U.S., each exploring a different aspect of minority learning.
The first chapter (Dara N. Byrne) investigates the relationship between the creation of community in an online environment and social practices in a racial context. The compelling dichotomy of this piece comes from the comparison of the generally accepted race-blind effect of the Internet with observed social effects between online social network (e.g., Black Planet, Asian Avenue) participants. Although anyone is allowed to enter the chatrooms of these and other racially based online social networks, most participants are of the same racial background. When a participant of another race is discovered, they are generally asked to leave, although some maintain false identities in order to stay on the website. According to the author, online social interaction that reinforces social norms and practices can create a racially based community outside geographical limits. Although the physical community may be decreasingly in evidence, the online racial community may now be taking its place.
The second chapter (Tyrone D. Taborn) in the first section explores the difference between prevalent minority myths and actual statistical data—e.g., “minorities are not good at math,” when in fact math scores show no distinguishable racial difference until the college level. The author suggests several different ways to foster the interest of minorities in technology and positions/careers based in its use. It is not enough to just give computers to minority families and schools; youth must be mentored and trained in the skills needed to be producers and creators of technology, not just users.
The second section begins with a chapter (Raiford Guins) entitled “Hip-Hop 2.0,” which delves into the ways that hip-hop culture creates social norms, community practices, and larger-than-life role models for its members. Hip-hop music and its attendant websites are described as major producers or channels for a new black public sphere. One end of this technological channel fosters black community through the creation of social norms, with the music and its artists becoming role models for the young members of this new black community. At the other end, black youth are able to gain access to real images of the outside world, a world that most of them would never be able to experience otherwise. By creating this culture through disseminating information and knowledge, hip-hop acts as the new digital town meeting. Engaging in the hip-hop culture offers black youth a better understanding of themselves and others in their community by participating in its global population. The author acknowledges the problem of the wrong type of role model, instead supporting artists that promote black self-publishing (without Wal-Mart restrictions) and active participation in democracy (hopefully to promote politics favorable to the black population). Raiford Guin also contrasts the new hip-hop public sphere with the previous paradigm of the black activist public sphere, asking whether or not these two divergent public images can co-exist compatibly or be somehow fused together. The answer could hold the future of the new black public sphere.
In another chapter, Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre focus on the accomplishments of Judy Baca, a Chicana artist or “artivist” (coined by Ms. Baca) who teaches at UCLA. An artivist is an artist that uses their art to bridge social, cultural and political divides. Ms. Baca’s teaching methods are as unique as any of the other teaching/learning approaches described in this book, but it is not just her teaching style that is remarkable. Judy uses her artwork, including digital banners and public murals, to teach important messages of self, self-esteem, and community to the Southern California Chicano population at large. Her politically active art and teaching methods are an example of innovative pedagogy that has successfully inspired students for decades.
For the title of his chapter, Antonio Lopez uses the image of the circled cross to represent the Native American place-embedded, symbolic view of the world. Within the framework of Native American cultural philosophy, technology must be seen as a tool to be used within the context of a place and embedded within the culture of its people. Lopez hypothesizes that educational pedagogy based on a more contextualized foundation would improve the present system that presumes that all students can be taught exactly the same way. His innovative teaching strategy seeks to counteract the depersonalizing tendency of technology by embedding it into the lesson that is being taught as well as the students’ culture.
Racially-based websites, hip-hop music and its culture, digital artwork, mentors and role models, and using local culture as a curriculum foundation are just a few of the unique and innovative teaching methods presented in this book. These strategies are embedded within minority culture and augmented through the use of technology. The key theme of this book is that pedagogical strategy, technology, and the intended audience should be integrated in order to effectively communicate and educate. This book, Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media, is an innovative and exciting look at ways that technology can be integrated into unusual formats to facilitate student learning.
Reviewer Information
University of Colorado at Boulder
Vicki Bennett received her BA from the University of California, Sacramento (Communication Studies/Organizational Communication), and her MA from West Virginia University (Communication/Instruction). She is currently working on her Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and also works as an adjunct professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Her research interests include the mediating effects of educational technology and the impact of its communication on student learning. She is committed to doing research with practical applications and implementing new pedagogical advances in her own classrooms.