Social Justice though Technical Communication: Teaching Resources
From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative
Social Justice through Technical Communication
The resources shared in this entry were developed by a graduate special topics technical communication course at the University of Texas, El Paso. The course was titled “Social Justice through Technical Communication.” The course description is as follows:
This course will introduce students to the field of technical communication through a specific focus on justice, empathy, and ethics. The purpose of the course is to help us think about how technologies are are created based on specific ideologies, and to provide a space where students can collaborate to design technologies that purposely work to counter injustice for marginalized populations. In this course, we will approach social justice from an intersectional feminist perspective, meaning that we will consider to issues of class, gender, race, and ability intersect in the creation and dissemination of technical tools and documents. Class conversations will be grounded in an understanding that we seek to develop tools and technologies to facilitate justice for populations that are marginalized based on race, class, nationality, ability, sexual orientation and identification, among other factors.
Through this course, we will begin to answer questions such as: How do technologies both facilitate and limit the work of specific communities? How are power and privilege embedded in the tools and technologies we use to communicate? and How can we design tools to ethically influence these dynamics?
Student Introductions
Because this was a special topics course offered in the summer, students in the course came from various disciplines and backgrounds.
Sam Mata: pursuing Interdisciplinary Studies Degree, focusing on Financial Fitness (helping people get out of debt, stay out of debt, and become financially fit for life).
Shelly Mansfield: mother of five who previously worked in the field of public relations. Currently pursuing an MAT degree and will be a teaching assistant at UTEP in the Fall. Eventually planning to teach high school or college English.
Lionell Manlutac: an army veteran with a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education-English/Language Arts and pursuing a Master’s degree in Rhetoric and Writing Studies.
Aaron Goulette: experienced English teacher of 10 years with a majority of his work focused on multimodal literacy pedagogy and social justice oriented lessons in AP classrooms. Serves as the English department chairperson at Pebble Hills High School. Currently pursuing the MAT degree for English.
Laurie Garcia: mother of two and pursuing a Masters of Art in Teaching English with a personal focus on social justice and civic education. Currently an Advanced Placement English Language and Composition teacher and U.I.L. academic team coach.
J. Sonya Patino: High School Teacher certified in Business, Speech, and English Language Arts currently teaching at Bowie High School, a Title I school. Holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication Studies from UTEP and currently pursuing a masters in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at UTEP.
The materials shared in this entry will provide both an overview of specific readings and potential applications for this work both in and beyond the field of technical communication.
