Intergenerational Learning and Digital Equity

Although multiple efforts have been made in the U.S. to support the development of digital literacies among minority youth in schools and other educational institutions, we have not fully addressed the potential of the family context as a site of intergenerational learning. That is, a context where both parents and children, learn and gain digital literacies together.

Supporting intergenerational learning at the family context can help us tackle problems such as the attainment and participation gaps. Social inequalities are reproduced at home. It is at this context where children start to develop a particular disposition to the use of technology. If we want to support equitable futures and create opportunities to diverse youth, it is necessary to more actively engage minority parents in the learning process and the development of new media literacies.

Through my research with working class Latino/Hispanic immigrant youths living in Austin, Texas, I have found that the problem of access to technology at home is not the major obstacle to meaningful participation in culture and society. Instead, it is the lack of access to social support and to digital literacy skills at the family context what is creating major barriers.

Working class Latino/Hispanic immigrant families are actually building networked domestic environments that are well equipped with media technologies. Parents make great efforts to buy computers, game consoles, mobile phones, and to provide internet connectivity. They imagine these technologies as essential tools for the education of their children and for moving forward in the U.S. Purchasing digital technology is an essential part of their assimilation process to a hyper-mediated culture and society. However, many of the parents from working class immigrant households have limited educational attainment and rarely develop digital literacies. Their little engagement with new media technology limits the kind of social support they can offer to their children . Many times it also creates extra barriers to the meaningful participation and learning at home. For instance, sometimes parents create rules about using the computer that seem to be coming from the “screen time” discourse of the TV era in which the device was used only for entertainment and consumption and not precisely for media production and education.

Promoting intergenerational learning can help parents who have little experience with technology start gaining digital literacy skills. Many of the Latino/Hispanic immigrants parents are already familiar with this kind of learning since they usually rely on their children for navigating U.S. culture and social institutions. What researchers call children brokering practices are precisely a kind of intergenerational learning that is common among immigrant families with low levels of educational attainment.

Brokering practices are those developed by immigrant children when they help their parents navigate different cultural and social domains in the new country. For instance, when they act as translators for their parents during visits to the doctor, or when they translate a letter from the school, children become brokers.

Although usually they are brokers of language, more and more often they have also become brokers of digital media technologies. They help their parents set up email accounts, send phone messages, and search information on the Internet.

Sergio, a 17 years old second generation Latino/Hispanic immigrant, for instance, has become a media technology broker for his mother Carmen. Sergio taught his mother how to use the Internet for finding food recipes and how to send email messages. In a great example of intergenerational learning, Sergio has also helped her mother to set-up a page on ETSY so she can sell the hand crafted textiles she makes. Working together, Sergio and her mother have been able to learn about how to present a product online, set up a payment account, and how to interact with customers online.

Such kind of collaboration can help both parent and children to acquire digital literacy skills. How can we design educational programs that support intergenerational learning? What kind of platforms can support this kind of parent-children collaborations? What kind of tools can help parents and children work together in the acquisition of digital literacy skills?

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *