Patricia A. Young

This essay chronicles five women of color working in higher education as purveyors of social justice, equity, and access. Using an autoethnographic approach, the authors share authentic interpretations of their experiences and the challenges of laboring within the academy. Conclusions argue for deliberately integrating social justice into education as a pathway to educating all students.

Using content analysis of top‑selling 2014 U.S. video games, this study examines how Africans are represented. Of 424 identified characters, Africans were markedly underrepresented and appeared only in supporting roles. Findings are discussed relative to media effects and the literature on representation, highlighting a need for broader studies that include understudied ethnicities in contemporary games.

Content analysis of 10 top U.S. video games (2014) finds Africans underrepresented and rarely in lead roles, broadening representation studies to understudied ethnicities and calling for further examination of how games shape public understandings.

Bridge (1977) was an intervention reading program designed for Black junior/senior high school students reading at 2nd–4th grade levels. Though potentially transformative for urban education, Bridge faced public opposition and was discontinued as an experimental project. Using text and context analyses alongside interviews with the designers, this article documents the program’s design, its cultural foundations, and reasons for its dormancy, providing lessons for designing culturally responsive educational technologies.

Investigating The Brownies’ Book (1920–1921), a children’s periodical, the article uses historical analysis and critical discourse analysis within a Foucauldian frame to surface “cultural remnants” embedded in the design—racial, ethnic, linguistic, political, social, educational, and economic artifacts. Insights from this culture‑based instructional product inform contemporary instructional design that integrates culture.

Designers of information and communication technologies face the challenge of meeting the needs of diverse populations. Reviewing literature from human–computer interaction and instructional design, this paper argues that existing approaches to “integrating culture” capture only a limited view of culture’s role in design. The article proposes viewing culture on a continuum from culture‑neutral (generic) to culture‑specific (specialized) design and concludes that design practice has not kept pace with technology: intentional processes are required to create ICTs for diverse audiences.