Techno-Social Change Agents: Fostering Activist Dispositions Among Girls of Color

Discourse about girls and women of color in technology has followed the familiar path of using a single-unit analysis to explain disparity. Consequently, approaches to “motivate” girls of color overemphasize gender and engage in technological fetishization without fully considering how race, gender,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Meridians (Middletown, Conn.) Conn.), 2016-01, Vol.15 (1), p.65-85
Main Authors: Scott, Kimberly A., Garcia, Patricia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
African American Studies and Black Diaspora
Change agents
Chicanx and Latinx Studies
Color
Computer technology
Curricula
Design
Designers
Digital broadcasting
Economic liberalism
Education
Females
Feminism
Feminism and Women's Studies
Feminist theory
Gender
Gender and Sexuality
Gender identity
Girls
Internet
Neoliberalism
Pragmatics
Pragmatism
Race
Science and technology
Section I: #BlackGirlActivism: Reading the Personal as Political & Public
Social change
Social justice
Sociology of science
Technological innovation
Technology
Technology education
Video sharing
Virtual avatars
Virtual communities
Virtual worlds
Women
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Summary:Discourse about girls and women of color in technology has followed the familiar path of using a single-unit analysis to explain disparity. Consequently, approaches to “motivate” girls of color overemphasize gender and engage in technological fetishization without fully considering how race, gender, class, and technology are co-constituted. Drawing on critical feminist theory, social justice education, and science and technology studies, this essay offers a critique of neoliberal approaches to technology education for girls of color and provides a broad overview of the conceptual catalysts that shape the approach of COMPUGIRLS, a National Science Foundation–funded technology program. The overview demonstrates how intersectionality and education activism can nurture the dispositions of girls of color to become techno-social change agents. The essay ends with a primer lesson on the representation of intersectional identities in online spaces that illustrates our theoretical and pragmatic approach toward education, activism, and girls of color in a digital age.
ISSN:1536-6936
1547-8424
DOI:10.2979/meridians.15.1.05