Part Two:
An Analysis of Social Investment in the New Literacy AgendaEach of the five chapters that make up the second part of Selfe's text focuses on a single stakeholder in technological literacy education: Government, Education, Business and Industry, Parents, and Ideology. These chapters present each stakeholder's roles as they historically developed through the 1980s and 1990s, and they also highlight the commonalities and contradicitions among these stakeholders' agendas:
Selfe is masterful at articulating the many ways that the intersections of these players have created a discourse about technology founded on a belief in the forward progress of technology. The profound dominance of this discourse continues to permeate the discussions of educators and the general public, despite much evidence that technological literacy has not fulfilled the promises of success and enfranchisement for many American citizens.
- The Government has worked to establish a global marketing base for American technological goods and services and therefore has needed a skilled workforce to increase technology expansion.
- Educators increasingly came to rely on computer technology to sustain already-existing teaching practices (skill drills, the grading of papers, etc.) and came to understand the need to prepare students for an increasingly technically oriented workforce.
- Business and Industry needed both a workforce to construct and market American technical goods and services and a technologically literate domestic consumer base.
- Parents have been told through the media, official governmental policies, business and industry, and educators that providing for their children's futures means ensuring that the children are technologically literate.
- The Ideology fueling the technological literacy movement has been a belief that "The creation of [national and global information networks] . . . will be good for our country and all of its citizens. These technological projects can contribute in major ways to our country's progress as a nation if we can educate American citizens, through our system of public instruction, to function productively in increasingly sophisticated technological contexts. Building such global technology systems will help reverse our flagging economy by creating jobs and expanding the computer industry. The systems themselves will increase our competitiveness, allow us to open new markets for American goods, and help us spread both Democracy and free-market capitalism around the world" (123).
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