Selfe and Selfe assert that interfaces are political; they are maps that “order the virtual world according to a certain set of historical and social values that make up our culture…The enhanced power of maps, growing out their long association with the projects of science and geography, resides in the fact that they purport to represent fact…as it is in reality, while they naturalize the political and ideological interests of their authors” (485). They ultimately argue that “teachers of English who use computers are often involved in establishing and maintaining borders themselves…and, thus, in contributing to a larger cultural system of differential power that has resulted in the systematic domination and marginalization of certain groups of students, including among them: women, non-whites, and individuals who speak languages other than English” (481). This occurs because (1) English is the default language and, often, non-English language – if they are available at all – must be paid for, (2) whites are privileged in items like the white pointer hand, and (3) the interface is based on middle class, professional lives because the metaphor is a (office) desktop and the desktop is populated with icons that are things the professional is familiar with, including “manila folders, files, documents, telephones, fax machines, clocks and watches, and desk calendars” (486). This means that “students from other races and cultures who hope to use the computer as tool for empowerment must – at some level – submit to the colonial power of language and adopt English as their primary means of communication” (489); so, “each time we ask students from a marginalized cultural group use computers, we ask them – require them – to learn a system of literacy that ‘distance[s] them from the ways of equality’” (494). Instead, they suggest, that we can discuss with our students what other metaphors might look like – the kitchen counter top, the work bench. Also, pre-service teachers should learn to recognize the ways in which the interface is political and how it encourages the adoption of particular ideologies. We should also take part in the design of interfaces.
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