Technology and the Accumulation of Literacy

In "Accumulating Literacy," Deborah Brandt discusses, among other things, "the enduring power of dominant classes to define language standards" and "[...] the emerging power of a highly educated, technocratic elite [...]" (659). In the story of Sam May, she describes how his literacy advanced through the years, and how it was affected, in particular, by new technologies such as radio and television. This narrative is relevant to our classrooms, because new technologies, particularly the internet, are having a profound impact on our students' abilities to acquire literacy. And while Brandt's claim that the dominant classes can use these new technologies to control literacy is interesting, it's also true that technology, particularly access or lack of access to it, can be used to limit literacy. This ability to control access to literacy promotes and protects an already established class structure by limiting upward mobility through education.

This aspect of Brandt's essay struck me as most interesting because this semester one of my students is an alumnus from the K-12 school at which I taught for several years in the early 00's. I taught this student in both seventh and eighth grade, and while he excelled among his peers, he's now struggling within my classroom. He told me that he's one of only three students from his graduating class that managed to make it into college. But one of the concerns he has expressed to me is an unfamiliarity with the technologies that play a role in college academics. This concern is especially relevant, since the theme of my course is technology. In particular, this student has struggled with Blackboard because he's relatively unfamiliar with internet usage and web browsers.

My student's lack of familiarity with web browsers and the internet represents how the limiting of the proliferation of technology can be used to maintain a regimented class system. In Tchula, Mississippi, where this student attended school, there was no widespread broadband access as recently as five years ago, when I taught there. While the school where I taught had internet access, it only worked sporadically, and very slowly when it did work. Almost none of my students had internet access at home; some of them didn't always have electricity. The fact that the internet has become such a crucial piece of educational technology in the classroom ensures that people and places with limited broadband access - primarily people from lower economic classes - will remain firmly placed in the social tier they currently inhabitant.

The fact that the student in question was able to escape Tchula and attend college at all suggests that the possibility to achieve literacy despite the limitation of technology still exists. However, now that the educational environment has become a technocracy, individuals who are not proficient with modern technology in general and the internet in particular will find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to acquiring literacy in today's educational climate.