Acculturation Technologies

Concept: We are interested in developing technology to aid in the blight of families divided by distance. We look at the case of Latino immigrants as an example of cultural and emotional dependence on their friends and family abroad. Our goal is to aid in the acculturation process of immigrant families in the United States. We have identified overlapping points of interest in acculturation, technology on the fringe, and the immigration of Latinos. Though both a pilot study and our ongoing work we illustrate our findings. Our findings to date have shown two things: first that use of technology is proportional to the level of adjustment in their new home in the United States, and second we show how there are several different segments of this population with diverse characteristics. Being that face-to-face contact is at a minimum, technology becomes even more important to build and maintain one’s social network in these new growth areas. The Pittsburgh area is a new growth area for Latino immigrants, which means that the population is so spread out that they do not have a community to turn to. We are looking at immigrants’ adaptation to their new environment by appropriating technologies to maintain, build and extend their social networks as they work toward citizenship or whatever their chosen goal may be. We are interested in understanding how technology might be developed to help immigrants’ adjustment to their new lives in the United States. We present a model for designing technology for this audience.

Role: Conducting in-home ethnographic studies on how Latino immigrants in a new growth area utilize technologies to build, maintain and extend their social networks and support their acculturation process.

Paper: Families Divided by Distance


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Last Updated: 2012/01/15 2:36pm