This paper provides a commentary on Robins and Webster's article "Computer Literacy: The Employment Myths" within the broader context of critiques of computer literacy. The author argues that the various critics of computer literacy are participants in wider disputes over pedagogical method, the purposes of education, and the role of education in a class society. In some ways computer literacy provides a pretext for these more general controversies, and the particular merits and problems of educational computing frequently become submerged under these wider debates. The author concludes that many of Robins and Webster's points are overdrawn, and that computer literacy is neither as useless nor as dangerous as they imply. Keywords: computers, employment, education, cognition.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adler, Paul. (1986). New technologies, new skills. California Management Review, 29, 9-28.
2.
Attewell, Paul. (1987). The deskilling controversy. Work and Occupations, 13, 323-346.
3.
Attewell, Paul. (in press). The impact of office automation on work: Insights from a multi-site study. In W. Littak & C. St. Pierre (Eds.), Automation and the future of white-collar work. New Delhi: Gian.
4.
Bowles, Samuel, & Gintis, Herbert. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America. New York: Basic.
5.
Braverman, Harry. (1974). Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review Press.
6.
Collins, Randall. (1979). The credential society: A historical sociology of education and stratification. New York: Academic Press.
7.
Danziger, James, & Kraemer, Kenneth. (1986). People and computers. New York: Columbia University Press.
8.
Dreyfus, Hubert, & Dreyfus, Stuart. (1984). Putting computers in their proper place: Analysis versus intuition in the classroom. In D. Sloan (Ed.), The computer in education : A critical perspective (pp. 40-63). New York: Teachers College Press.
9.
Dreyfus, Hubert, & Dreyfus, Stuart. (1986). Mind over machine: The power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
10.
Goldstein, Harold, & Fraser, Bryna Shore. (1985). Training for work in the computer age. Washington, DC: National Commission for Employment Policy.
11.
Hirsch, E.D., Jr. (1987). Cultural literacy. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
12.
Kasarda, John. (1988). Jobs, migration, and emerging urban mismatch. In Michael G. H. McGeary & Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. (Eds.), Urban change and poverty (pp. 148-198). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
13.
McDermott, Kathleen. (1985). All dressed up and nowhere to go: Youth unemployment and state policy in Britain. Urban Anthropology, 13, 91-108.
14.
National Commission for Employment Policy. ( 1986). Computers in the workplace: Selected issues (Report No. 19. Washington, DC: Author.
15.
Noble, David F. (1984). Forces of production: A social history of industrial automation. New York: Knopf.
16.
Noble, Douglas. (1984). Computer literacy and ideology. In D. Sloan (Ed.), The computer in education: A critical perspective (pp. 64-76). New York: Teachers College Press.
17.
Papert, Seymour. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: Basic.
18.
Pea, Roy. (1985). Beyond amplification: Using the computer to reorganize mental functioning. Educational Psychologist, 20 (4), 167-182.
19.
Pea, Roy, & Kurland, D.M. (1983). LOGO programming and the development of planning skills (Technical Report No. 16. New York: Bank Street College, Center for Children and Computing Technology.
20.
Pea, Roy, & Kurland, D.M. (1984). On the cognitive effects of learning computer programming. New Ideas in Psychology, 2(2),137-168.
21.
Reskin, Barbara, & Hartmann, Heidi. (1986). Women's work, men's work: Sex segregation on the job. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences Press.
22.
Rothwell, Roy, & Zegveld, Walter. (1985). Reindustnalization and technology. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe .
23.
Sardello, Robert J. (1984). The technological threat to education. In D. Sloan (Ed.), The computer m education: A critical perspective (pp. 93-101). New York: Teachers College Press.
24.
Shaiken, Harley. (1984). Work transformed: Automation and labor in the computer age. New York: Holt, Rmehart and Winston.
25.
Useem, Elizabeth. (1986). Low-technology education in a high-technology world: Corporations and classrooms m the new information society. New York: Free Press.
26.
Wood, Stephen (Ed.). (1982). The degradation of work? London: Hutchinson.
