Dissertation Research: Popular Technology: Participatory Strategies for Community- Relevant IT Expertise

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

This STS dissertation research project is guided by the following three questions: 1) How are low-income women structurally positioned in relation to technology? How does this positioning limit the potential of traditional technology training programs? 2) What are the factors for success in technological education and participatory design in the service of social change (popular technology)? 3) What are the factors that constrain or enable successful and ethical use of technological and academic expertise in grassroots social change projects? This research project studies the design and implementation of popular technology programs at the Troy-Cohoes YWCA in Troy, NY. The field site brings to light some of this country's most disturbing social and economic inequalities in an extremely diverse residential context where an empowerment model of personal and social change is central, the sharing of resources, knowledge, and assets is common, and the economic empowerment of women and girls and the elimination of racism is the mission. The research questions will be pursued through a mixed-methods approach including participatory action research (PAR), focused interviews, and critical discourse analysis. NSF will support 12 months of field research to complete the participatory design of a suite software intended to help low-income women navigate the social and human services system, assess and evaluate this software and the collaborative process of its design, and to conduct focused interviews to broaden the applicability and generalizability of the PAR research. This study will make significant scholarly and practical contributions by contributing to better empirical understandings of the relationship between technology and poverty in the contemporary U.S. context, examining the applicability of new participatory approaches to technologically mediated university-community research, and critiquing existing understandings of "technocratic" and "lay" expertise. This proposal also responds directly to the NSF's criteria for significant broader impacts: it broadens the participation of underrepresented groups (particularly women, people of color, and the economically disenfranchised) in community-based technological design and implementation; it builds a significant infrastructure for university-community engagement and partnership across social and economic strata; and it explores and evaluates models that integrate undergraduate research and education by providing opportunities for community theory/practice learning for RPI public service interns.