Review of Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Paying Attention
Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Paying Attentionby Cynthia L. Selfe
Southern Illinois University Press 1999
ISBN 0-809-32269-2  182pp.  $14.95

Review by Ellen Schendel
Grand Valley State University
 

Cynthia Selfe's latest book argues, quite simply, that we as literacy educators need to be more aware of the political, governmental, capitalistic, and ideological forces that shape our culture's connections with literacy, and that we need to act as agents of change toward a culture of technology critics. The argument that Selfe makes in Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century is one she made in her 1998 CCCC chair's address and is one that most Kairos readers already find convincing: that narrow definitions of technology as tool and technological literacy as familiarity with computers, and investment in the grand narrative that increasing the quality and quantity of technology in our schools will solve educational and societal problems, are shallow and dangerous. Moreover, this narrow definition of technological literacy and the accompanying belief that the forward progress of technology will drive the success of our children and the United States side-steps certain realities: that children of low-income families and children of color are less likely to have access to updated technology than middle- and upper-class white children; that males are more likely to be encouraged to use and specialize in technology than females; and that the nation's rush to make its citizens technologically literate has perpetuated a class system in which the technologically savvy have high-paying jobs while the technologically underprivileged support that system in low-paying positions.

We who are literacy educators, argues Selfe, have a responsibility to be aware of these inequities in technology access and education and to work to narrow gaps between the technological haves and have-nots.

That is the short version of Selfe's eloquent argument. The strength of her book is that it is so accessible, clearly laying out her argument with historical and contemporary examples (governmental policies, advertising campaigns, previous research) to bolster her points. In fact, although the book is written for educators at all levels (K-college), it is written in a style and is filled with content that the general public--particularly parents of school-aged children--would find interesting. As such, Selfe's latest work does what I wish more of our field's scholarship would do: it explains to a general audience why we take the teaching of writing so seriously, why we believe that "literacy" defined in the broadest sense best serves our students and school systems, and why large-scale, high-stakes, government-sponsored educational reforms so consistently fail.

Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century is organized into three sections. Part One defines terminology, particularly the "official" definition of technological literacy, and offers Selfe's own definition of critical technological literacy as an alternative. Part Two describes the stakeholders involved in the Clinton administration's Technology Literacy Challenge and their sometimes dovetailing, sometimes conflicting objectives. And Part Three outlines Selfe's eleven-point plan of action, an agenda for us as scholars and activists to expand our culture's discussions about what it means to be technologically literate and what it means to ensure that students have access to technology and true technological literacy.