Race and the Digital: Racial Formation and 21st Century Technologies

Women and the divide

I concur with just about everyone on this blog, your presentations was very enjoyable and well done. I took some notes, and will definitely be looking to format my blog in a similar manner.

To the first question posed by Kid Comet, I would like to reply that, no I did not have many minority teachers growing up. Even though my community had a large latino population about 40% I cannot recall a single science, math, or computer teacher that was of color. I recall having a higher percentage of female teachers in these fields, sometimes even more than the male teachers.

In addition, I found one of the most surprising part to be the discussion of shortage of women of color in the engineering field that came after affirmative action measures had been taken. This is surprising to me because I would expect a large increase in the number of women of color come because of this; this has not been the case according to the research.

In regards to the digital divide, this article continues to make a case that culture has a huge impact on a persons ability to use, and purpose for using ICT's. I think that besides having mentorship programs to encourage engineering programs for emerging students, there is a need for community based programs to promote technology and engineering. If the culture around minorities, especially the female population, can foster positive attitudes towards STEM subjects and increased interest, then this may be an effective way of increasing women of colors numbers in these fields.

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