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Technology and multicultural education: Thequestion of convergenceSuzanne K. Damarin aa Professor of education , The Ohio State UniversityPublished online: 05 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Suzanne K. Damarin (1998) Technology and multicultural education: The question ofconvergence, Theory Into Practice, 37:1, 11-19, DOI: 10.1080/00405849809543781

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Suzanne K. Damarin

Technology and Multicultural Education:The Question of Convergence

TODAY'S EDUCATORS ARE FACED with two majorchanges in the social and cultural fabrics of

the United States. First, the populations of schools,as well as the larger society, are increasingly mul-ticultural, aware of the power differentials associ-ated with the variables of race, ethnicity, class,and gender, and resistant to White, Western, maleinscription. The rise of multicultural education, at-tention to diversity, and equity initiatives withineducational settings frame and reframe a complex,multifaceted agenda in response to these changes.

Secondly, the rapid growth and adoption ofelectronic computer, communications, and infor-mation technologies throughout society is shiftingthe parameters defining society's expectation anddemand that schools produce graduates who areliterate and competent in the norms and require-ments of the workplace and the conduct of dailyaffairs. An educational technology agenda charac-terized by the importation of computers, multime-dia, and network technologies into instructionalspaces and processes responds to these and relateddemands.

Beyond their very different focal interests,the multicultural equity and technology agendasfor change differ on several dimensions. The mul-ticultural equity agenda has emerged primarily from

Suzanne K. Damarin is professor of education at TheOhio State University.

the "grassroots" and from activist politics, whilethe electronic technology agenda has been devel-oped largely through the efforts of powerful cor-porations and governmental agencies. Theelectronic agenda enjoys a rhetoric of progressthrough science and technology, an expectation ofsuccess,1 and the prior knowledge that it requiressubstantial capital investment. On the other hand,the equity and diversity agenda exists within a 4decade history of efforts that have been only par-tially successful and within an expectation that itshould be achieved without investment in costlyadvanced technologies.

Although the electronic and multiculturalagendas are pursued simultaneously, they are pur-sued almost totally independently of each other.From most perspectives they are separate and evenoppositional efforts. With few exceptions the phi-losophies and literatures of multicultural educationand educational technology do not recognize eachother. Among those researchers and scholars whostudy the social effects of computing, includingeducational computing, it is widely believed thattechnological advance is multiplying the gap be-tween the "haves" and the "have-nots," the latterincluding disproportionately many African Ameri-cans and other people of color.

As the title indicates, this article examinesthe potential for convergence of these agendas andaims to identify strategies for (as well as barriers

THEORY INTO PRACTICE, Volume 37, Number 1, Winter 1998Copyright 1998 College of Education, The Ohio State University0040-5841/98$!.50

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to) the development of common ground and ef-forts through which educational multiculturalistsand technologists can work together. In seekingthis ground, I turn first to a better understandingof the divisions between proponents of the twoagendas. Following the discussion of differences, Iexamine parallels in the pedagogical work of thetwo groups. Finally, I address the questions ofwhether parallel beliefs and pedagogies might sup-port collaborative, simultaneous efforts toward theachievement of both agendas. Or, do these veryparallels work against convergence?

Differences and OppositionsThe electronic classroom poses particular

problems and issues for the pursuit of an agendaof equity and fairness to all in a diverse culture.The technologies themselves and the vision of anelectronic community are largely the products anddreams of privileged White men; they are "valenced"(Bush, 1983) toward certain cultural values that aresalient in the fields of science and engineering butnot shared by all in the society. In addition, manyaspects of their applications are guided by meta-phors drawn from places and activities that are tra-ditionally the domains of privileged White men:executive suites, "jet-set" travel, and surfboarding.People of color and women have not been equallyinfluential in the design and development of thesetechnologies.

Scholars and commentators from the fieldsof sociology (Cohn, 1996; Zuboff, 1988), technol-ogy assessment (Bush, 1983; Morgall, 1993), edu-cation (Brunner, 1992), and cultural studies(Samuel Delaney and Tricia Rose as interviewedin Dery, 1994) all point to evidence that both deepand superficial characteristics of technologies aredetermined by the socially and culturally-basedassumptions of their designers and developers.These findings indicate that women, members ofthe working class, and African Americans woulddesign and apply advanced technologies different-ly were they given the opportunity. There can beno question but that there are encoded in the class-room technologies of today certain features (someidentified and some not yet uncovered) that per-petuate Eurocentric, masculine ideas and ideals.

Within education, this situation is not uniqueto advanced technology, however. The architects

of American education were primarily Eurocentricmen and our educational systems bear the legacyof their sociocultural assumptions. Agendas forequitable and multicultural education are alreadyin opposition to biases deeply engrained in the re-sulting educational practices. The major questionsfor educators with respect to technology wouldseem to be whether the technologies are so thor-oughly saturated with cultural biases that they mustbe changed or resisted more energetically and ful-ly than other aspects of education. And/or do tech-nologies, with their promises of bringing the worldinto the classroom and of supporting student learn-ing in multiple modalities, together with the revi-sioning of schooling that their full adoption seemsto demand, afford new and useful opportunities forexpanding the scope of equitable and multiculturaleducation? These questions must be examined withunderstanding of the current positionalities of mul-ticulturalists and educational technologists in rela-tion to them and to each other.

Concerns About Technology2

While some educators who are deeply con-cerned with multiculturalism espouse the impor-tance of technology in schooling (DeVillar & Faltis,1991; Malcolm 1988; Roblyer, Dozier-Henry, &Burnette, 1996), they and others raise serious ques-tions about the value of technology for childrenfrom non-European cultural backgrounds and theimplications of large scale investment in technolo-gies rather than what many see as more fundamen-tal or immediate community needs. The majortechnology-related concerns of those focusing onequitable and/or multicultural education fall intothree categories: (a) knowledge construction ver-sus basic skills, (b) investing in technology versusbasic needs, and (c) technology and culture.

Knowledge construction versus basic skillsSince the advent of educational computing 3

decades ago, two visions and directions of instruc-tional development have been apparent. In one vi-sion, students use the computer as a powerful toolfor investigation, problem solving, and creative ex-pression. Through tool-using activities they constructboth products and knowledge. This is the visionespoused and promoted in most current efforts toincrease the use of advanced technologies in

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schools. In the second vision or direction, the powerof the computer is used for individualizing instruc-tion toward prespecified, fragmented knowledgeand skills. It is this second vision that is realizedmost often in schools with histories of low studentachievement where integrated learning environ-ments (ILEs) are frequently adopted.3

Since the earliest conception and developmentof ILE systems, their advocates have argued thatthey allow students who perform poorly in schoolto improve their achievement by removing the so-cial risks associated with poor public performanceand allowing them to work in privacy. Providingstudents with feedback untainted by subtle (andnot so subtle) prejudices of teachers toward stu-dents of their particular race, class, family, sex,sexual orientation, or other individual characteris-tics, the computer can allow students to work attheir own speeds.

Large scale studies (including meta-analyticstudies of the original studies) of the effectivenessof computer-based tutorial instruction, conductedin the 1980s, suggest this approach is "effective"for remedial, supplementary instruction on basicskills (Kulick & Kulick, 1991; Roblyer, Castine, &King, 1988). On the basis of these studies, individ-ualized learning environments have become wide-ly adopted for remedial classes and institutionalizedin Title I programs. Because African American stu-dents are twice as likely as White students to beassigned to remedial instruction (Tate, 1995), thispolicy has particularly affected Black students' ex-perience of educational computing.

Responding to this and related situations,Malcolm (1988) points out that, despite well-pub-licized promises of meaningful learning activitiesthrough technology, these practices mean that manyminority children experience educational technol-ogy only through tutorial systems and, therefore,as meaningless, boring, and controlling. All chil-dren, she argues, should be able to use new elec-tronic technologies in meaningful and creativeways. In her discussion, Malcolm is referring tostudent use of powerful tools as advocated underthe opposing vision of educational computing, thefirst vision mentioned above.

The themes of student use of powerful toolshave long been evident in the rationales offeredfor use of computer technology in schools (Papert,

1980; Taylor, 1980). These themes are most sa-lient in arguments for the use of educational tech-nology in support of current school reform (Means,1994; Means et al., 1993; Sandholtz, Ringstaff, &Dwyer, 1996; Sheingold & Tucker, 1990). Theserely heavily on ideas of students engaged in "mean-ingful activities" through which they "constructknowledge," which is evaluated through "authen-tic assessment." The ideals of technology-supportedschool reform point away from integrated learningenvironments and toward student use of high-techtools in the construction of knowledge.

From the perspective inside many schools,however, the situation is not this simple. Urbanteachers point out that demands for technology uti-lization are not isolated but are usually coupledwith demands for competency standards and test-ing. In wealthy districts, these teachers argue, it ispossible to attend to both "meaningful activities"and "minimum skills" because the latter can beprovided for through combinations of home com-puting software,4 tutoring purchased by parents,computer- or teacher-directed sessions provided bythe school system, and other approaches.

In the absence of realistic access to theseoptions, inner city and poor rural districts cannot pro-vide "both . . . and" but must settle for "either . . .or." Moreover, competency testing is a "highstakes" endeavor often directly tied to students'acquisition of a high school diploma. Teachers feelcompelled to focus on these competencies. With-out data showing that minimal competency achieve-ment is a predictable outcome of constructivist,computer-based activities, therefore, tool softwareis less appealing than tutorials. Moreover, in gen-eral agreement with Malcolm, many teachers findcomputer-based tutorials to be both boring to stu-dents and difficult to manage. Therefore, they seeno compelling reason to adopt advanced educa-tional technology in either of its guises.

Computers versus basic needsArguably, minimal employability skills, basic

intellectual competencies, and a high school diplomaare basic needs of students becoming adults today.Beyond these, basic student needs vary with the eco-nomic, sociocultural, and individual backgrounds ofstudents. Some students come to school with theirbasic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and a safe

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home unmet. For others, school itself is not a safeor hospitable environment, and actions to make itso are needed. All students need to be respectedfor who they are and nurtured in their becomings.In non-affluent schools, the question of need forinstructional technology is often considered inmultiple and conflicting relations to these otherdimensions of student need.

Politicians' promises to provide all studentswith computers or, more recently, with access tothe World Wide Web have been put forth almostsimultaneously with arguments, initiatives, and leg-islation to terminate or curtail school breakfast andlunch programs and most other support for per-sons in poverty. While such arguments have metwith criticism from many quarters, they have alsoserved to create and reify a binary opposition be-tween feeding starving children and providing themwith computers in schools. This "let them eat lap-tops" framing makes it difficult for teachers andothers concerned with the education of childrenmarginalized, not only by race and ethnicity butalso by poverty, to be dedicated supporters of edu-cational computing.

Despite these contrary discourses, there aresome urban teachers who advocate consistently fora multicultural equity agenda and who do viewtechnological literacy as a basic need of studentsfrom marginalized groups. The argument for thisposition is compelling: Denial of literacy and in-formation has been a tool of oppression through-out history; to deny marginalized and oppressedchildren computer literacy and access to the WorldWide Web is to participate in the continuation oftheir oppression. As one Black teacher put it: "Weneed to give our kids computers because as slaveswe were not allowed to have books or even toknow how to read."

Urban teachers who advocate for technology,however, are most often denied their wishes. AsPiller's (1992) investigations reveal, the hardwareand software base of inner city schools in generalis meager, obsolete, and typically inoperable dueto lack of maintenance and repair. Up-to-date andwell-supported computer and communicationsequipment for instruction is clearly not a high pri-ority for most inner city schools. Despite the con-tinuing requests of the teacher quoted above for a

classroom computer, for example, when her dis-trict administrators had money to spend on tech-nology for her school, they selected an elaborate,multi-camera security system to monitor the door-ways and halls. This panopticon system may (ormay not) address existing basic needs for safety inthe schools, but clearly it does not meet the in-structional needs expressed by the teacher.

In summary, at levels of both rhetoric andreality, the need for instructional technology is pit-ted against other real and perceived needs. Thereis a surrealistic quality to'the discourse and trade-offs negotiated. Computers for the education ofmarginalized children have been positioned againstfood for hungry children by members of both po-litical parties through several cycles of nationaland state campaigns. This rhetoric tends to dimin-ish the spoken value of the computers for class-rooms in neighborhoods of poverty. Thus devalued,the computers give way easily to other "needs"such as the monitoring system cited above.

Some teachers from urban elementary schoolsalready using such surveillance systems note thatin their buildings there is no person employed towatch the multiply split screen and intercede inany dangerous situation it reveals. Thus, in theseurban schools we now have students and teachersworking without appropriate technology while tech-nology works continuously without appropriatehuman users. It is not hard to imagine what kindof sense young children make of this situation andof the meaning of technology in their lives.

Technology and culturePerhaps it was situations like this panopticon

school building that a young Black woman had inmind when she said, "Well, computers are in ourculture, but they're not really part o/it." Interject-ing this comment into a discussion of educationaltechnology and inner city schools, she went on towonder whether an insistence that Black childrenlearn with computers was tantamount to denial ofBlack culture. These observations are evocative ofmany issues and discussions in the literatures oftechnology, culture, and society. Here one findsnumerous discussions of technological determinism,of the relationships between technological develop-ment and the course of Euro-American societies, and

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of erasure of technical and technological develop-ments in nonwestern cultures by our histories ofscience and technology.

The problem of educators committed to eq-uitable multicultural education is not the resolu-tion of these larger issues but rather the steering ofa course for curriculum and instruction in an areawhose complexity is exemplified (but not exhaust-ed) by the issues noted above. Generally speaking,educational technologists have ignored most ofthese issues in theorizing and analyzing students'responses to technology. Measures of computer lit-eracy have categorically treated some reasonedbeliefs concerning computers as illiterate. Numer-ous studies of "computer anxiety" have reducedall computer resistance to "anxiety" and advocatedanxiety reduction as an essential goal of equitableeducation. In the context of a broader discussionof technology and culture, the narrowness and tech-nocentrism of these approaches is apparent.

Those applications of technology that usecomputers to direct and control the work of stu-dents are particularly suspect in this context. Intheir examination of technology and culture in ed-ucational settings, DeVillar and Faltis (1991) findthat the common use of integrated learning envi-ronments isolates and silences students. Thus theprevalent use of these systems in urban schoolscontributes to school complicity in the continuedsilencing of minority students, particularly Blackand Hispanic students.

In the naive early years of school microcom-puting, many educational technologists5 believedthat tool uses of computers in schools would upsetthe patterns of achievement differences associatedwith gender, race, and class, as well as age. AsPapert (1980) put it, "the computer changes whocan do what, and at what age." This localized no-tion mirrored the belief in many parts of the largercomputer culture that computers were/are tools ofand for freedom.

But, as noted above, the culture that createsboth these technologies and the mythology of theirnecessity, promise, and potential is a subgroup ofWhite males. As Barbrook and Cameron (1996)point out, the "virtual class" that promotes ad-vanced information technologies brings together "acontradictory mix of technological determinism and

libertarian individualism [which is becoming] thehybrid orthodoxy of the information age" (p. 49).These values do not assort themselves well withcultures concerned with maintaining cultural iden-tity while improving their status within the largersociety. While the new information technologieswere argued to promise intellectual and creativefreedom to all, Barbrook and Cameron state, amongthe computer elite "the fear of the rebellious 'un-derclass' has now corrupted [this] most fundamen-tal tenet" (p. 61).

Technologists and MulticulturalismAs used in this article, the term "technolo-

gists" refers to those professionals who, as theirprimary focus and activities, advocate for educa-tional uses of computer, multimedia, and networktechnologies. While many of these are teachers orprofessional educators, others have come to edu-cational technology via routes that do not requireimmersion in educational settings or issues. Tech-nologists' advocacy can take many forms rangingfrom speaking on behalf of these technologies topersistent pursuit of various activities (e.g., fund-raising, design and development of hardware, soft-ware, and classroom activities) that support andfurther the use of technologies in schools.

The technologists considered here not onlysee these advanced communications and informa-tion technologies as contributing substantial valueto educational settings, they see little, if any, rea-son to question the directions and parameters oftechnological development. Two aspects of thetechnologists' position in relation to educationalequity, diversity, and multiculturalism are consid-ered in the following sections: (a) openness to all,and (b) the math-science connection.

Openness to allTechnophilia (or "love of technology") often

entails the belief that all problems will succumb totechnological solutions. Insofar as technologistsadhere to this view, they see themselves as ad-dressing the educational needs of all students.Moreover, projects of educational technology de-velopment, dissemination, or evaluation funded byfederal or state governments, as well as by manymajor foundations or large corporations, include

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in their specifications the requirement that educa-tional equity and the diversity of students in thetarget population be addressed within the project.

Generally speaking, technologists take thisrequirement quite seriously and engage in pilot andfield testing or other project-appropriate activitiesin diverse school settings involving representativestudent populations. Thus many, and perhaps vir-tually all, of those technologists engaged in thedevelopment and dissemination of advanced tech-nologies for education say with honesty they areconcerned with issues of equity and they work to-ward its achievement.

The math-science connectionIn the early years of educational computing,

it was a mathematics or science teacher who initi-ated computer use in most schools across the coun-try. With the development of user-friendly wordprocessing, graphical user interfaces, multimedia,and internet applications, computer uses in class-rooms today extend well beyond the original mathand science applications. Many would argue that itis anachronistic to consider that today's education-al technologies are tied to either the practices orthe worldviews of mathematics and science.

While this position reflects the current stateof the art in computing, it is not wholly consistentwith the state of the practice of technology use inschools. The largest single use of computers inmost educational settings is for word processingof papers and other assignments. Many more var-ied and complex uses of computers (and the relat-ed technology of graphing calculators) are to befound in math and science classes, however. Na-tional Science Foundation funding for education,the availability of web-based science activitiesthrough zoos and science museums, and the possi-bilities for students to interact with scientists andprojects at research laboratories all provide for sci-ence and mathematics salient opportunities to fur-ther the use of computer-related technologies inschools.

Moreover, professional acclaim is accordedto large scale, science-based educational technolo-gy products such as the Vanderbilt TechnologyGroup's Jaspar Woodbury materials. The repeatedcitation of these as outstanding examples of con-structivist, situationist teaching accords to science

and scientific thinking an exemplary place in theliteratures of educational computing. Thus, scienceand mathematics continue to hold a dominant po-sition in educational computing. As these are theareas most troublesome for many women and stu-dents from minority groups, their dominance con-tributes to the separation of minority and femalestudents from computers and thus to the inequitiessurrounding educational computing.

Overall, this discussion of the technologists'view of equity and diversity points both to theopenness of the technologists to all and to the termsof that openness. While technologists in educationexpend time, effort, and money on projects de-signed to introduce and implement technologiesequitably in diverse subcommunities and subgroupsof schools and students, they bring to those effortsa technocentrism and generally an attitude largelyinfluenced by the assumptions, procedures, and/orfindings of science and mathematics. Unproblema-tized acceptance of technological determinism andconsequently the great value of what they bring,together with attitudes shaped by belief in scientif-ic (and mathematical) truth, characterize the au-thority with which they bring technology to allclassrooms.

Emancipatory and Electronic PedagogiesTo become more than Utopian theories, move-

ments for educational change—whether based inideas of equity and diversity, technology optimi-zation, or some other grounding—must work them-selves out in classroom practice. Theory must bearticulated as a pedagogy that defines and describesthe major parameters of instruction. Pedagogy, inturn, guides the specification of day-to-day prac-tices. If the electronic and equity/diversity agen-das are to be played out together in classroompractices, their pedagogies must be noncontradic-tory of each other. Ideally, they would define over-lapping rubrics. To examine the feasibility of acommon pedagogy, we'first consider each of thepedagogies separately.

Emancipatory pedagogyEmancipatory (or liberatory) pedagogy is of-

ten described as rooted in the theories of liberatoryeducational theorist and practitioner Paolo Freire(1970). Freire's theories and practices are rooted,

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in turn, in Marxism and in close observation andintervention in schools in his native Brazil. Freire,theorists of feminist pedagogy (Culley & Portuges,1985; Disch & Thompson, 1990), Black feministeducator bell hooks (1994), radical educators (Shor,1987) and multicultural educators as representedin Sleeter and Grant (1987) have the followingcommonalities. They all reject what Freire callsthe "banking system of education," in which thestudent is viewed as a repository of facts, and fa-vor instead an approach that values the needs ofthe student as the starting place for instruction. Inrecent years, Freire's work, in particular, has be-come influential within the work of many educa-tional researchers and practitioners who are more"mainstream" than radical.

Also common to these theorists is the notionthat teachers and their authority within the class-room must be decentered in order that the knowl-edge students bring to the classroom from theirhomes and communities be honored as grounds onand from which to build new knowledge. Researchon women's ways of knowing (Belenky, Clinchy,Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986) and on the educationof Black students (Delpit, 1988; Hale-Benson,1986; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Sleeter & Grant,1991) supports the importance of this decenteringand suggests operational ways of achieving it.

A third commonality among these writers isthe idea that those groups of students who havebeen less well served by education should bebrought "from margins to mainstream" by teach-ing directly for their culturally constructed waysof knowing, systems of thinking, and valued re-sources. Thus, emancipatory pedagogy proceedsfrom a view of the students' construction, owner-ship, and pride in their own knowledge as the es-sential outcome of schooling.

Electronic pedagogyFor nearly 2 decades, schools have acquired

computing and video hardware and software in thebelief that it would improve the education of chil-dren. Some efforts to implement these technolo-gies in classrooms were (and are) based in the beliefthat integrated learning environments and relatedartificially intelligent programs would simulate, inpart or in whole, the behaviors of excellent teach-

ers and thus displace/replace some teacher work.Other efforts, including those that concern us here,were and are based in the ideas that the technolo-gies bring valuable resources to the classroom andthat teachers will facilitate students' use of theseresources toward increased and improved learning.

In both cases, the "electronic pedagogy" re-quired by increased use of technology entails teach-ers serving more as activity guides than asrepositories of knowledge. Philosophies of learn-ing and instruction using technological tools arebased in constructivist theories of knowledge; stu-dents are assumed (and guided) to construct indi-vidual knowledge. Moreover, individual learningstyles or preferences for working and learning withvisual or aural materials are recognized. Multime-dia and hypertexts are designed and used to sup-port various ways of learning.

ParallelismAlthough the roots of electronic and emanci-

patory pedagogies are, in many ways, remote fromeach other, there is an apparent parallelism in someof the keystone principles that support each. Thisparallelism, outlined in Table 1, exists around twokey ideas: (a) the rejection of student accumula-tion of preselected facts as the driving mode ofeducation, and (b) the assertion that the social or-ganization of the classroom must change in waysthat not only displace the authority of the teacheras a dispenser of all valuable knowledge but alsodisrupt the traditional hierarchies (pre)determiningwho succeeds in school.

Table 1Parallelism in Liberatory and

Electronic PedagogiesEmancipatory Pedagogies Electronic Pedagogies

Reject "banking system"of education

Decenter the teacher

"From margin to main-stream"

Knowledge shared bystudent and computer-based resources"A guide on the side,not a sage on a stage"Recognize multipleways of knowing

The parallelism illustrated in Table 1 extendswell into the literatures on theories of knowing andlearning that have been developed by educational

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researchers who investigate optimal uses of tech-nology in classrooms. Elsewhere (Damarin, 1993,1994), for example, I have identified four ways inwhich the theories of situated cognition intersectthe needs of students from working class and/orminority environments. Parallelism invites us tosee a pattern of consistencies and sameness acrossareas of practice that do not share common ele-ments. These consistencies can create a window ofopportunity for practitioners (including instructionaldevelopers, curriculum planners, and teachers) whofocus on educational technology to join those whofocus on equitable multicultural education in aneffort to define and devise curricula and activitiesthat serve their common purposes.

On the other hand, a key feature of parallellines of work is that, like the parallel lines of ge-ometry, they tend never to intersect, but continueon indefinitely separated by an unchanging gap.Without a conscious and continuing effort to re-duce the gap on the part of those separated by it,the situation remains unchanged. For several rea-sons, in the situation at hand it is incumbent oneducational technologists to make the first movetoward convergence. First, as noted above, accept-ing the responsibility to address the education ofall students is a condition of their fiscal support.Attention to the literatures of multicultural andequitable education will allow them to fulfill thiscommitment more completely.

Second, in the movements toward education-al change, all actors must change, or at least beopen to change. For multicultural educators to adopttechnology without a corresponding adoption ofmulticultural education by technologists would con-tinue the cultural oppression that necessitates to-day's work toward equitable and multiculturaleducation. Technologists must take the lead by find-ing and developing uses of technology that specif-ically serve the needs of educators concerned withequity and multiculturalism, and thus the needs oftheir students. But, in "taking the lead" technologistsmust also first follow, educating themselves on theissues and needs of the multicultural classroom.

Notes1. Although prior attempts to reform education throughtechnology utilization have been largely unsuccessful(Cuban, 1986), the framers and stakeholders of the cur-

rent technology agenda assume they will be successful.The "technological imperative" and the ideas of progressthrough technology require expectations of success.2. I am grateful for the many insights and discussionsconcerning these issues expressed by teachers in mycourse, "The Functions of the Computer in the Class-room," members of my graduate student reading group,and my doctoral advisees. In particular, I want to recog-nize and thank Randy Lattimore and Da'aiyah Saleem formany discussions around these issues and AlexanderAdusei, Shawntain Black, Charlene Gomer, MichaelHurt, Maleka Ingram, Dorothe Martin, Donya Peay,Unice Teasley, Umesh Thakkar, Thomas Tucker, andMarilyn Zimmerman for sharing keen insights into par-ticular issues of race and technology. I have much moreto learn from each of them.3. Integrated learning environments (ILEs) were origi-nally known as computer managed instruction (CMI), aterm that captures the management features of thesesystems. Using embedded activities as diagnostic testsof student knowledge, these systems determine the se-quence and pacing of individual work on traditionalschool subject matter. Over the past 25 years, thesesystems have become increasingly sophisticated. To-day's intelligent tutoring systems use techniques of ar-tificial intelligence for diagnosis of student errors andknowledge structures. These systems are generallybased upon "deficit models" of student performance.4. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. households now ownat least one computer (Lavin, 1996).5. Including the present author; see Damarin (1984),for example.

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