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Being Cognizant of Diversity, Intersectionality, Privilege, Equity, and Inclusion as ECT Scholar-Practitioners

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Abstract

Elaborating on a keynote presentation prepared to be delivered at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) 2021 Summer Research Symposium, this chapter speaks from the periphery—i.e., the views expressed herein do not conform with mainstream views within our field—to explicate a perspective regarding scholarship and practice within the field of educational communications and technology (ECT) which has been developed and evolved by its author—henceforth referred to within this Chapter in the first person singular—over a quarter century of navigating said field as an immigrant, non-Western, non-Christian, openly gay scholar-practitioner of color. This perspective spans and represents a gamut of diverse professional experiences within a field that has historically been rooted in Western ethnocentrism and heteronormative patriarchy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See https://www.cmpb.gov.sg/web/portal/cmpb/home/about-us/discover-ns

  2. 2.

    As Ghanaian-American philosopher Kwame A. Appiah notes, the noun “West” and adjective “Western” have meant different things at different times, but in recent years they mostly refer to the north Atlantic—i.e., Europe and its two wealthy English/French-speaking former North American colonies—along with Australia, New Zealand, and White South Africa; “Western” can thus look very much like a euphemism for “White” (Appiah, 2016).

  3. 3.

    Prestige accent refers to the accent(s) of the dominant social group(s) speaking a given language (Fuertes et al., 2002); examples include Received Pronunciation (RP) a.k.a. the Queen’s English (Hogenboom, 2018) and Standard American English (SAE).

  4. 4.

    See https://www.linkedin.com/in/drgcpowell/

  5. 5.

    Please note study was published before AECT chose “Towards Culturally-situated Learning Design and Research” as the theme for its 2020 International Convention, held virtually during the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic. As many in our field came to notice, the wholesale shift to remote learning/work provoked by Covid-19 rapidly foregrounded stark inequities across social/cultural groups in access and competencies with regard to the technologies necessary to make such learning/work possible. That said, it remains to be seen if ECT’s currently sharpened focus on equitable technological access does not simply subside in tandem with the Covid-19 pandemic.

  6. 6.

    Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex. As of 2021 the initialism LGBTQQIA+ prevails; it features separate Qs for Queer and Questioning, along with A for Asexual, and a + sign to acknowledge additional groups—such as Pansexual, Nonbinary, etc.—who may not be served by the current set of initials.

  7. 7.

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ6fSHr5TJg&t=5s

  8. 8.

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml-ZP-_e_o4&t=3s

  9. 9.

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Flsg_mzG-M&t=2s

  10. 10.

    See https://cabowers.net/index.php

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Deepak Prem Subramony

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  1. Deepak Prem Subramony
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Brad Hokanson

  2. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Marisa Exter

  3. College of Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Matthew M. Schmidt

  4. College of Education, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

    Andrew A. Tawfik

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Subramony, D.P. (2023). Being Cognizant of Diversity, Intersectionality, Privilege, Equity, and Inclusion as ECT Scholar-Practitioners. In: Hokanson, B., Exter, M., Schmidt, M.M., Tawfik, A.A. (eds) Toward Inclusive Learning Design. Educational Communications and Technology: Issues and Innovations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37697-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37697-9_11

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