Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education

Spring 2006 (Vol. 8, No. 1)

Theme: Multicultural Education and Internet

Guest Editor: Paul Gorski

Overview | Articles | Open Forum | Reviews of Resources

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Overview

What is the connection between multicultural education and technology?  One connection lies in that contemporary society is becoming increasingly multicultural and technology-dependent.  Advancement of computer technology, also manifested in the Internet, has accelerated globalization and the global exchange of ideas, objects, and people, which has enhanced the diversity within local and global communities.  Although the exciting promise of computer technology as a social equalizer for all people has been in the air for some time, research has shown that the promise has not always been delivered.  Instead, the digital divide, defined as “the gap between those who have access to technology and those who do not; between those who have the expertise and training to utilize technology and those who do not” (Cooper and Weaver, 2003, p. 3), has been widened on the basis of differences in gender, class, race, and national wealth.

Looking straight at both the potental and the perverseness of computer technology, this issue not only celebrates the power of computer technology in enhancing educational opportunities for all people, especially those who have been traditionally in the margin of societies, but also critiques the perpetuation of inequality imposed upon the same population through the local, national, and global.digital divide.

In the ARTICLES section edited by the guest editor, Paul Gorski, critical perspectives are presented by scholars from different countries.  Arnold from Australia critically examines the imperialistic impact of English as a dominant e-language on the world, especially its impact on non-English speaking nations and local communities. Bronack from the U. S. questions the potential of the Internet as a means of bringing equal educational opportunities to all students, arguing that schools are often the only access point to the Internet for poorer students but they do not provide open access to students equally.  Molins Pueyo from Spain discusses the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the Spanish educational and social context and, at the same time, exposes the digital divide of the nation on the basis of class, region, education, cultural origin, and age.  Not all articles presented in this issue are critical of computer technology or the Internet.  Bao's study presents the utilitarian value of the Internet for English as Second Language (ESL) students of Chinese descent residing in the U. S. Her informants are convinced that this globally connecting tool gives them freedom to transcend the geographic, linguistic, and psychological confines of their outsider status. Macfadyen from Canada takes the reader to the more philosophical question of the reality of a virtual community.  Focusing on virtual ethnicity, she argues that ethnic communities formed and fostered in the cyberspace should be acknowledged as real communities despite the fact that they do not have a physical and territorial connection.

Reviews of arts, books, and multimedia resources pertain to the theme of "multicultural education and Internet" in this issue.   The Art Review contains an article, "Digital Art and Internet," in which Art Review editors write about three collaborative digital art exhibitions involving students from Columbia University in the U. S. A. and from Seoul Women's University in Korea. Selected images from the exhibitions are also presented.  The Book Reviews section includes one children's book and five professional books, and the Multimedia Reviews introduces reviews of 18 websites.  

The OPEN FORUM section presents two articles, one based on research and the other on an instructional idea.  This section publishes articles addressing issues and concerns of multicultural education beyond the theme of a particular issue.  Ramos employs a self-developed Foto-Dialogo method to help Hispanic adult learners, particularly women, understand themselves and others in their community.  This creative method encourages adult learners to share life-based self-narratives stimulated by images of people in all stages of life, from infancy to old adulthood.  Langford et al. share an interdisciplinary curriculum that pulls together English, visual arts, social science, and history contents and multiple instructional strategies to meet multicultural, linguistic, and academic needs of English-language learners. 

EMME is an epitome of collaboration.  Paul Gorski, Guest Editor of the Articles Section; John and Hwa Young Caruso, Co-editors of Art Review; Linda Stine, Copy Editor; and Leah Jeannesdaughter Klerr, Assistant Editor, have poured their expertise, wisdom, and dedication into the mix.  I deeply thank each one of them as well as Eastern University for their belief in serving the global community and providing support to this open-access effort.  

From this issue, PDF versions will be available for articles and the art review.  When you use our articles, we ask you to give proper credits to our authors.  We recommend that the PDF version be used for citation.  

I would also like to inform the readers that the next issue, which will focus on the theme of "multicultural education in higher education," will be the last issue of EMME.  After that, EMME will transition into a new peer-review journal with a new title (soon to be announced).  All issues of EMME will continue to be available online with no subscription fees.  

Enjoy this issue and send your comments to the editorial staff at emme@eastern.edu. 

Heewon Chang, Ph. D.
Editor-in-Chief
Associate Professor of Multicultural Education
Eastern University

Articles

SOME Social and Cultural Issues of English
as the Global Language:
Everything Is Changing, Everything Is Going, Going, Gone Now  
by Josie Arnold, Swinburne University of Technology-Lilydale Campus, Australia
[HTML version] [PDF version]

“Computer Means/Changes My Life”:
ESL Students and Computer-mediated Technology
by Huihong Bao, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, U. S. A.
[HTML version] [PDF version]

Learning Unplugged:
The Internet Divide in American Schools
by Stephen Bronack, Appalachian State University, U. S. A.
[HTML version] [PDF version]

VIRTUAL ETHNICITY:
The new digitization of place, body, language, and memory
 by Leah P. Macfadyen, The University of British Columbia,
Canada
[HTML version] [PDF version]
 

Reviews of Resources

ART REVIEW

DIGITAL ART AND THE INTERNET
by Hwa Young Caruso & John Caruso, Art Review Co-Editors
[HTML version] [PDF version]

BOOK REVIEWS

Literature for Young Readers

Draper, S. (1999). Romiette & Julio. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Professional Literature

Cooper, J. & Weaver, K. D. (2003). Gender and computers: Understanding the digital divide. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gajjala, R. (2004). Cyber selves: Feminist ethnographies of South Asian women. Lanham, MD: AltaMira.

Gorski, P. C. (2005). Multicultural education and the Internet. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Poster, M. (2001). What's the matter with the Internet? Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.

Redner, H. (2004). Conserving cultures: Technology, globalization, and the future of local cultures. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.