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Under construction: Minority girls becoming technologically fluent in an urban after-school program

Abstract

Technological fluency involves having a deep understanding of information technology as well as an identity as someone who engages with technology in meaningful and complex ways. Hence, it is more fruitful to think about individuals not as developing technological fluency but rather as becoming technologically fluent. Although physical access to technology is increasing for all youth, a meaningful gap still exists in regard to opportunities for them to engage with it in complex and meaningful ways (Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010) and hence become technologically fluent. My dissertation work focused on one such opportunity.

Specifically, this dissertation explores the acquisition of sophisticated technological knowledge and skills by fourteen low-income Latinas between the ages of 11- and 18-years old, their identity development in regard to engaging with technology, and the characteristics of the learning environment within which their engagements with technology occurred. At the heart of my research was a theoretically framed learning environment consisting of a programming workshop offered at a community technology center located in a low-income community of Los Angeles, California. Data sources included interviews, focus groups, observations, and artifacts.

Analyses showed that the learning environment's characteristics motivated and supported the participants in their development of several of the technological capabilities, concepts, and skills included in the framework for technological fluency put forward by the National Research Council (1999), and in particular programming knowledge and skills. Moreover, although a significant change in participants' identity was not observed at the end of the workshop, the diversity of experiences, learning outcomes, and self-beliefs reflected in the data suggested that participants' identity, as much as their development of technological knowledge and skills, was at play as they engaged in the workshop. This dissertation highlights a learning environment that successfully supported young Latinas as they became technologically fluent and attested to the feasibility of community technology centers as a viable alternative for making complex and meaningful technological activities accessible to girls.

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