Computer Literacy as Ideology

Computer Literacy as an Ideological Concept

The first indication that computer literacy might be more of an ideological concept than a technical category is its vague and contradictory nature. As Ragsdale says:

Competing definitions have rendered the term 'computer literacy' almost meaningless. Some proponents of computer literacy emphasize the need to provide students with a complete set of computer skills, information on how they are used, and knowledge of their effects. Others urge a less structured approach, allowing students to learn about computers through writing, drawing, or composing music. Finally, an emphasis on computers as communications media leads to the stressing of applications such as electronic mail, computer conferencing, or the ubiquitous 'bulletin boards'... (Ragsdale, 1988, p. 160).

For most people, "computer literacy" probably means all of these things - a general, diffuse familiarity and comfort with computers. In fact, becoming "comfortable" with computers is frequently seen as being equally, if not more important, than becoming "literate", in the sense of possessing technical fluency. In 1984, the Ontario Deputy Minister of Education stated that "the system of basic education must help develop in the general population some degree of psychological ‘comfort’ with and acceptance of the new technology and the need to apply it." (Penny, 1984). In the same speech, he used terms like "attitudinal conditioning" in describing the purposes of computers in schools. Statements such as these indicate the importance attached to the symbolic functions of computer literacy by the bureaucrats, industrialists, and politicians who have developed and supported the concept.

As a corollary to the basic confusion about the meaning of computer literacy for schools, there is a lack of clarity about its goals. There are a number of different historical "visions" or "traditions" about the basic purposes of schooling, but two of the most important have been the developmental and the vocational (see Goodson, 1984). The developmental tradition selects forms of knowledge for their importance to the learner’s ongoing cognitive and affective development. The primary criteria are the needs and interests of the learner. The vocational tradition, by contrast, stresses the occupational destinations and needs of the learner. In this tradition, knowledge is chosen for its value in the preparation of a skilled workforce, and in aiding learners to develop the knowledge and skills which will maximize their potential in future work.

Although computer-literacy justifications have regularly appealed to both of these traditions, in their most common form they are essentially vocational arguments. They assert that computers will dominate the workplace of the future, and that students must therefore have some knowledge of how computers function, in order to be comfortable and competent in such a workplace. A related form of the computer-literacy argument does not rely entirely on the concept of vocational training, however. It rests more on a kind of technological fatalism, which suggests that computers are going to be "everywhere" in the future - from banks to grocery stores to TV sets to cars — and that, whether students will need computer skills in their work or not, they need to have some general idea of how to operate a computer console just to deal with these exigencies of daily life. If computers will be everywhere, then why not in the schools?