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Critical Technical Awakenings
Momin M. Malik2(
)
)
Keywords:
machine learning, education, critical technical practice, critical consciousness, perspective transformation
Cite this article:
Malik M, Malik MM.
Critical Technical Awakenings.
Journal of Social Computing,
2021, 2(4): 365-384.
https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0035
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Starting with Philip E. Agre’s 1997 essay on “critical technical practice”, we consider examples of writings from computer science where authors describe “waking up” from a previously narrow technical approach to the world, enabling them to recognize how their previous efforts towards social change had been ineffective. We use these examples first to talk about the underlying assumptions of a technology-centric approach to social problems, and second to theorize these awakenings in terms of Paulo Freire’s idea of critical consciousness. Specifically, understanding these awakenings among technical practitioners as examples of this more general phenomenon gives guidance for how we might encourage and guide critical awakenings in order to get more technologists working effectively towards positive social change.
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Critical Technical Awakenings
Momin M. Malik2(
)
)
Abstract
Starting with Philip E. Agre’s 1997 essay on “critical technical practice”, we consider examples of writings from computer science where authors describe “waking up” from a previously narrow technical approach to the world, enabling them to recognize how their previous efforts towards social change had been ineffective. We use these examples first to talk about the underlying assumptions of a technology-centric approach to social problems, and second to theorize these awakenings in terms of Paulo Freire’s idea of critical consciousness. Specifically, understanding these awakenings among technical practitioners as examples of this more general phenomenon gives guidance for how we might encourage and guide critical awakenings in order to get more technologists working effectively towards positive social change.
Keywords:
machine learning, education, critical technical practice, critical consciousness, perspective transformation
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Publication history
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Publication history
Received: 20 May 2021
Revised: 07 December 2021
Accepted: 08 December 2021
Published:
30 January 2022
Issue date: December 2021
Copyright
© The author(s) 2021
Acknowledgements
Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for great feedback and pointing us to some relevant literature, and Ben Green both for fantastic continuous comments and for corralling and managing this special issue.
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The articles published in this open access journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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