Discord in Intercultural Negotiation: Toward an Ethic of Communicability

This paper explores how the “meanings” of technology use are being culturally negotiated between Western educators and native Iñupiat Eskimo learners at schools across the Alaskan Arctic region, as part of a wider examination of the impact of the Western product and process technologies embodied by these schools upon the socio-cultural consciousness of the non-Western learners whose educational needs they seek to serve. There are two distinct aspects to this intercultural negotiation between educators and learners: (a) attempts of the former to reconcile their practices with the latter’s values, standards, and expectations; and (b) efforts of the latter to culturally appropriate the non-indigenous technologies being made available to them. It is expected that professionals working in a range of organizational contexts within our field may be able to gain insight from the remarkably universal nature of the problems and solutions involved in this extreme and instructive situation of socio-cultural tension

Download Full-text

Culturally Negotiating the Meanings of Technology Use

Handbook of Research on Instructional Systems and Technology ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-865-9.ch060 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 842-868 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Deepak Prem Subramony

Keyword(s):

Technology Use ◽

Arctic Region ◽

Cultural Consciousness ◽

Organizational Contexts ◽

Problems And Solutions ◽

Alaskan Arctic ◽

Product And Process ◽

Intercultural Negotiation ◽

The Impact ◽

Universal Nature

This paper explores how the “meanings” of technology use are being culturally negotiated between Western educators and native Iñupiat Eskimo learners at schools across the Alaskan Arctic region, as part of a wider examination of the impact of the Western product and process technologies embodied by these schools upon the socio-cultural consciousness of the non-Western learners whose educational needs they seek to serve. There are two distinct aspects to this intercultural negotiation between educators and learners: (a) attempts of the former to reconcile their practices with the latter’s values, standards, and expectations; and (b) efforts of the latter to culturally appropriate the non-indigenous technologies being made available to them. It is expected that professionals working in a range of organizational contexts within our field may be able to gain insight from the remarkably universal nature of the problems and solutions involved in this extreme and instructive situation of socio-cultural tension

Download Full-text