Dissertation Draft, Chapter Four

Illustrations from Fieldwork at Colonia La Herencia

     This chapter will consider my experiences in working at the community computer center in Colonia La Herencia vis-à-vis John Dewey's theory of the active self. As stated previously Dewey's active self theory is a social learning model which explains voluntary prosocial behavior. I will discuss Dewey's social learning model in light of observations I made while conducting my fieldwork within Colonia La Herencia. The goal of this section is to illustrate how I believe John Dewey's theory of the active self can explain the individual psychology behind the creation of social capital and social learning. The events which I will be describing here took place between July and November of 2003, after the community computer center in Colonia La Herencia had opened.

     For clarity of discussion I will divide the fieldwork into four phases, and I will discuss and analyze each phase individually. I've established these phases retrospectively based on the analysis of my data by considering what was happening during any particular week as the program at the center took shape. In other words these four phases are interpretive labels that I am applying to the data retrospectively. In terms of the actual operation and use of the community center, the process was a continuous operation. Each successive week was merely considered another week in the life of the community center, and we were not working to any particular blueprint or phase plan as to where we expected to be at a given time. However in retrospect it seems useful to think of the process as a preliminary phase, a initiation phase, a development phase, and a networking phase. Each of these phases of the fieldwork is described and analyzed below. The goal of this analysis is to describe a theoretical explanation of social capital and learning which is grounded in Dewey's notion of the active or moving self.

 

The Preliminary Phase

     The community computer center officially opened on July 1, 2003. However the first several weeks of operation were interrupted constantly as we were working out technical problems. It was frequently necessary to cancel the day's classes during this phase due to computer network or building related issues. As a result relatively little hands-on student workshop activity took place during these first few weeks. In retrospect however this phase seems to have been important to the way the study activity would later develop.

     The remodeling had taken longer than expected and although there was still some remodeling work to be done I was happy to finally have reached the point where my formal study could begin. During the remodeling phase of my time in Colonia La Herencia I was worried that if something unforeseen should happen which would cause me to have to leave sooner than expected, I might end up with no data whatsoever, after having worked for nearly a year to propose and arrange for the study. So I was relieved in early July to finally begin working on the study. However during the first several weeks of operation various unexpected problems and interruptions arose and frequently made it necessary to cancel classes. Some of these class cancellations were due to construction activities still going on in early July which caused us to have to close the center on several days. At one point a truck from the electric company drove by and disconnected our power, which I was told was somehow related to the fact that elections were being held the next day. It took a day to get the power back. Worse delays were caused by unforeseen computer problems. We thought that the computer network was ready to go on July 1. However it took us quite a bit longer than expected to get the Internet connection and local network functioning properly. The hard drive on the computer we had purchased for the Internet server was defective and had to be returned. After the server was again operational another problem surfaced which was preventing the network from functioning correctly. We were fortunate to have a local technician who was very committed to his work and came every day to work on the problems until the network was operating satisfactorily. He had agreed to set up the network for a small fee, and due to the fact that so many unexpected problems occurred he ended up making very little money in comparison to the large number of hours he had worked, but he never complained and he stuck with the job assiduously until everything was working properly. Still there were several weeks in July when the technician was there full time and the computers could not be used by students on those days. In addition the computers when delivered did not have the proper software installed as we had requested of the vendor, and the software was in English rather than in Spanish. Because I was also responsible for coordinating the remodeling work and the installation of the computer network I frequently had to close the computer center to students during these first weeks so that I could assist either the construction people or the computer technician.

     Despite all of the delays and cancellations, some Emergent Design computer activities did take place beginning with the first week of July. Emergent Design is a very learner-centered approach where the actual activities to be undertaken are selected by the students, not the teacher or facilitator. The idea is that rather than to teach how to use a particular tool, like a software program, the facilitator only gives a brief introduction to the program and the students on their own experiment with the program and later use these computer-based tools on problems that are of interest to them personally in their everyday lives.

     Specifically in the hope of tapping into latent social capital, the Emergent Design approach is intentionally very unscripted. Therefore I did not come into the fieldwork with a fixed agenda in mind about what sort of activities I would be carrying out with the students. I hoped rather that this would emerge based on interactions with the students.

     Many of the students in my first group were from the Christian Family Movement. Because they had been around a lot, and helped with the remodeling, they were often asking me when the classes would begin. At times when I walked down the dirt roads of the Colonia strangers would ask me about the classes. There was a lot of interest in both computer classes and in English classes. Being so close to the U.S. border and in an area where a lot of jobs involve English speaking, many people have more than a passing interest in learning to speak English.

     Early in July when I was ready to start accepting students I knew that it would not be difficult to fill the classes. In fact, I held off advertising much the classes because I knew that with only ten computers it would not be possible to accommodate everyone who wished to attend at once when the classes first began. The first group of adults which I accepted was an evening class which I scheduled mainly for the people from the Christian Family Movement, who were often around the center working on activities related to their own program. This happened to be the time of the year when they were recruiting for new members, so they were often around the church for planning and informational meetings.

     When the first classes were held the Internet connection still was not installed and the only software on the computers was a version of Microsoft Windows in English. However at least with this I was able to begin to introduce the students to some of the rudiments of computer usage. The students themselves unpacked the computers and connected the keyboards, mice, and monitors, etc. and got them working. I periodically would give brief demonstrations of the limited software that was available, but I tried to let them as much as possible have "hands on" experience experimenting with the computers, although at first there was little they could do. In this day and age a standalone computer which is not connected to the Internet is almost an anachronism, although I think the students found the first classes interesting because for them having a computer to use was something novel.

     The protocol for these early workshops was based on the Emergent Design curriculum developed by Professor Cavallo. It mainly consisted of brief software demonstrations followed by time for the students to work and experiment with the computers. I explained the study, explained that it was unstructured and not like traditional classes, and also that later on we would be doing projects based on whatever was of interest to the students.

     With the first group, which met in the evenings at seven p.m., I also told them that although the teaching method was not like traditional classes, that first and foremost the classes were for them, and not for me. I stressed that if they wanted traditional classes, such as with a book where we worked through the book systematically, that would not be a problem for me. I told them that if they would prefer regular classes with a book, in fact I wanted to know that. However no one said they wanted to use the other format. As it happened in a later phase of the fieldwork, once the lab was finally ready to go with all the bugs worked out, a direction did emerge more along the lines of traditional classes. However I will explain that later on. At least at first however, during the first few weeks whenever it was possible to have classes we followed the format of brief demonstrations and mainly hands-on practice time for the students.

     One of the first things actually that they expressed an interest in was learning English, and we decided to dedicate the later part of every class to a brief English lesson. The first class was meeting in the evenings at 7:00, and we decided that at 8:00 we would begin an English lesson for anyone who was interested. At first nearly all of the students wanted to participate in the English classes. One of the students from this class, a young woman named Maritza, brought in a small English textbook which she recommended we use and I agreed to teach a daily English lesson from the book. This 8 p.m. English class actually continued for the next six months of my time in the Colonia, although the membership of students who attended the class was constantly changing.

     On Friday July 18 the problem with the computer network was finally resolved, and after that point it was rarely necessary to cancel classes. Thus I consider July 18 to be the end of what I call the "preliminary phase" of the fieldwork.

 

Analysis of the Preliminary Phase

     Not a great deal of social learning occurred during the preliminary phase. However events occurred during this phase which would afford a substantial amount of social growth in subsequent phases. Most notably, a large amount of social resources came online. The community center, although not completely finished, was now available for use by the community. In addition, there was now a network of ten new computers with Internet access available for use by the social system.

     The social system had not yet adapted to use these resources, however by the time of the completion of the preliminary phase the resources were available within the social domain, and the social system would quickly adapt to take advantage of the new possibilities at hand. Leveraging these new resources would entail the provision of additional social capital by individuals whose involvement in these activities would bring to light previously latent aspects of their social potentials. These pending changes of the social system would be enabled by the new social resources which came online during the preliminary phase.

     Whereas not a great deal of social change or learning occurred in the preliminary phase, the acquisition of these common pool resources by the social system would lay the groundwork for the more substantial changes which would quickly begin to occur in the subsequent phase, as the use of the resources and the individuals roles and interpersonal relationships pertaining thereto, (i.e. the "active selves" to use Dewey's terminology), would begin to move and evolve.

 

The Initiation Phase

     The first week after the Internet was set up in the community computer center proved to be a very important period for the development of the study. Although I did not realize what was happening at the time, during this first week patterns emerged which would determine how the community computer center operated for the duration of the project. In this section I will describe the events of this first week, and then consider these events in light of John Dewey's model of the active self.

     As mentioned above, I had come into the fieldwork with the intention of using David Cavallo's Emergent Design methodology, which is a very open-ended approach designed to follow the interests of the community. The intent of this approach is not to steer the community formation process in any particular direction, but rather to create conditions to allow latent interests related to authentic community problems to emerge.

     At the beginning of this initiation phase the only students I had were the evening students. A few people had started to come to the day classes early in July, but the extended and frequent down times caused by the network problems had apparently discouraged them to the point where they gave up on us. The evening classes with the group mainly from the Christian Family Movement had been interrupted less because by 7:00 in the evening the building and computer work had usually finished.

     Once the community computer lab was available full time it soon became apparent there was far more interest in classes for children than in classes for adults. Since we had only ten computers we could have kept them busy all day by enrolling only adults. Yet it was obvious that more children than adults wished to be enrolled. Usually when adults came into the center they were interested not in classes for themselves, but in enrolling their children in classes. Many children also came without their parents to use the computers. When word spread within the Colonia that the computer lab was open we quickly became inundated with children who wanted to sign up for classes. I had originally planned to conduct eight hours daily of Emergent Design workshops with adults at the community computer center. However upon seeing the degree of interest in the community for children's classes it was at once apparent that the limited resources of the computer center would have to be allocated differently. Therefore I decided to make the center available for children during the day, and to limit the Emergent Design workshops for adults to the evening hours after 5 o'clock.

     With so many children using the center during the day I realized that simply running the computer center classes for the children would be a full-time job. At that time the center still did not have any paid staff. If I did not have help running the community center classes for children I would have little energy left to conduct my dissertation study as planned. On the other hand after so much time getting the center ready I wanted the center to be well used. UCLA has a very rigid program for approving research and my research had been approved to conduct a study of the Emergent Design curriculum with adults. If I wanted to volunteer on my own time to organize computer classes for kids at the community center that was my prerogative. However I realized that if I ever expected to finish my dissertation study I would not be able to manage the classes for the children at the community center at the same time as I conducted my dissertation study. And at this point in time the community computer center had no other staff.

     Actually, due to the generous financial donation to the computer center which I mentioned above, there would have been funds available at that point to hire someone to work at the center. But the nonprofit organization which would operate the program was still in the process of legal incorporation in Mexico, so they were not yet able to hire employees. It occurred to me that possibly we could find helpers from the community to oversee the center during the day. I had the idea that even though we could not hire them as employees to work at the center perhaps we could offer them some other form of compensation. For example perhaps we could obtain gift certificates from a local market as an incentive for the persons working at the computer center. I thought we could offer these gift certificates in lieu of pay to persons working at the center until the non-profit organization was able to hire someone. This would enable the center to be available for children's classes and would free up my time to work with the adults for my Emergent Design dissertation study.

     I decided to propose my gift certificate idea to the community members who were in my Emergent Design group. Since the purpose of the Emergent Design approach is to empower the community, I was very interested in knowing what the members of the Emergent Design workshop thought about my idea of how the community center and classes for the children could be organized. To my surprise, the people in my evening class did not favor the idea of using gift certificates or any other form of de facto pay to motivate volunteers. Although not unanimous on this point, the consensus seemed to be that it would be best to ask for volunteers who would not receive any compensation. Maritza, the young woman who had provided the English textbook, said that if people were given some form of compensation for working they would only come when they needed the compensation. She thought it would be better to ask for volunteers but not offer them anything in return. She felt that in this way we could be sure of more dependable people helping at the center. Montero, another member of my study group, (who also by the way seemed to be the informal leader of the Christian Family Movement group), agreed that it would be better to ask for volunteers but not to offer them anything by way of incentive. So I asked them if they would make a flyer asking for volunteers, and several of them worked on creating one on the computer that evening. This flyer asking for volunteers was the first actual work produced on the computers at the community center. Maritza composed the flyer, which said that the volunteers would learn about computers while they were helping. The flyer did not mention anything about gift certificates. I had been overruled on that point, and after this the people who volunteered at the center were never paid.

     After that time Maritza herself became by far the most active volunteer at the center. She came almost everyday and often stayed the whole day. Sometimes she brought her children with her. I asked her if it was not too much for her, and she insisted that it was not. She said it wasn't too much work and that she didn't have anything else she needed to do, and she preferred to be at the center. Another woman from the evening class also began to volunteer a lot, although not nearly as much as Maritza, and the two of them soon became the number one and number two people in charge of the community center during the day. For my own part I tried to be at the center to observe whenever it was open, but I always tried to not take a leading role in the operation of the center.

     Almost from the beginning when Maritza began to come in and volunteer she began to set up procedures for the center which were different than I had done. Whereas I had made the center available on a drop-in basis, she began to set up class rosters for the children, to make ID cards, and to keep attendance records. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was the emergence of the basic organization structure which would characterize the community computer center for the duration of the study. All of this after all had happened within one week of the Internet being finally connected so that the center could be open full time. I was still expecting other things to come out of the Emergent Design workshops I was conducting in the evenings, and I was at that time generally oblivious to the fact that the community process I was interested in studying was already well underway.

 

Analysis of the Initiation Phase

     The most significant development of the initiation phase was the surfacing of a latent interest in classes for children in the community. During this phase and later on it was very apparent that many people within the Colonia were willing to work for this social end. We generally never had trouble finding volunteers to work at the community computer center. This latent social capital had previously been present but it took the presence of the operating community computer center to begin to activate this social capital. Of course this process of making the center available was begun by the nonprofit organization long before I ever arrived at Colonia La Herencia; however once the community computer center opened this began to activate the social capital within the community. The process moved in a chain reaction. For example, whoever it was that made the anonymous donation to finish the community computer center and buy the computers and Internet connection had contributed social capital to the system, which enabled the center to become open much more quickly and with much better equipment than would otherwise have been possible. This in turn created opportunities for others to volunteer and help the center.

     In line with Dewey's theory of the active self, as individuals see possibilities for social systems to emerge, they become willing to contribute social capital to the process. At the same time, they hope that the social system which emerges will be in accordance with their own views of how things should be done. Hence in line with Dewey's active self theory as discussed in the last chapter, they are involved in a simultaneous process of establishing their social roles and their social systems, using both their own energies and the resources available for this purpose within the social domain. Maritza vetoed the idea of providing gift certificates to the volunteers, and then became nearly a full-time unpaid volunteer at the community computer center herself. Maritza later became the central person in the whole operation of the community computer center, the person who was identified as "encargada", or in charge. Eventually she was offered the title of director of the center along with a modest salary when the non-profit agency was ready to hire someone.

     Although of course no one can see with complete certainty into another person's reality, I think Maritza's early involvement and very active involvement in the community computer center could be interpreted as an illustration of Dewey's model of the active self. In other words the advent of the community computer center created for Maritza an opportunity to express latent parts of her personality which had not been active previously. When I first realized how much Maritza was volunteering I told her I did not think that it should be necessary for anyone to volunteer more than eight hours per week, and that we should look for more volunteers. Maritza seemed to completely disregard my idea about working only eight hours per week, and she kept coming in every day. I asked her on several occasions if so much volunteer work was not a burden to her, but she said her children were well behaved and that her older children were very responsible, so that she did not need to be home with them. She said that if she were home she would not be doing anything. She also said that a doctor had recently told her it would be good for her to be more active.

     The fact that Maritza worked so hard as a volunteer from the very beginning and that she had been vocal in vetoing the idea of gift certificates made me wonder if perhaps she hadn't been thinking all along about trying to obtain paid employment at the center. Maritza never inquired or expressed to me any interest whatsoever in paid employment at the community computer center. The subject was never mentioned with me even obliquely. But on the other hand it might have been easily inferred that the non-profit organization would eventually need to hire someone to work there, or she made have heard this from someone at the church. Maritza was already a very active volunteer at the church, being I understand the volunteer assistant to the paid director of religious education. She described herself to me as one of the "servidores", or one of about six persons within the church whom she named to me who were the very active workers for the community. There certainly would not have been anything wrong with seeking paid employment at the community computer center, if that was her intention. On the other hand I noticed that she also frequently volunteered with other work at the church from which paid employment was not likely to result, so I could infer at the very least that her motivation for helping went beyond hoping to acquire a job, if indeed that was part of her motivation.

     At any rate as it turned out, quite surprisingly, several months later after several hundreds of hours of unpaid volunteer work at the center, when Maritza was eventually offered a very modest salary to direct the computer center by the nonprofit organization she immediately asked if she couldn't give half of the job to the other woman who had been helping her. At Maritza's request, the non-profit organization agreed to split the small salary for what was going to be a full-time job into two half-time jobs, and give one to someone else. So even if one adopts the most cynical view that all of Maritza's efforts were self-serving and designed to get herself a job, she immediately gave half of her job away. In suggesting that half of the job be given to this other person, Maritza said that she knew the other person needed the money. However it was clear from knowing the family that Maritza could have easily said the same thing about herself. Since Maritza customarily did so much other volunteer work for the church anyway which she later continued, giving away half of a paying job seemed to imply giving away paid hours in exchange for volunteer hours.

     At any rate, Maritza's strong interest from the beginning at the community computer center could be interpreted as an example of Dewey's model of the active self. Maritza's contribution to the computer center during the first months was huge, and she also had a huge influence in determining how the center would be organized. As I mentioned above, from the very beginning she changed the way the activities were organized, based on her subjective or personal view of the way things ought to have been. For example, she developed schedules of when kids would come in to use the center, made ID cards for the kids, and began to keep attendance - all things I had not done. So, in the process of contributing social capital to the center Maritza was also influencing how the social system was organized. By her actions, as opposed to merely her intentions, she was actively making a statement about who she was, and she was making a statement about how she thought the social system ought to be.

     In this way, interpreted as per Dewey's model of the active self, the identity of the individual and the social system are both in a constant state of formation. The self within this model is seen as something which is active, not stable or ready-made. When viewed through the lens of Dewey's active self model, in deciding to take these actions Maritza was deciding what kind of person she wished to be, and she was at the same time influencing the kind of society she wished to be a part of. After Maritza had been working as a volunteer at the center for a few months I asked her what she thought about the Emergent Design method of learning computers, in which she had learned mostly by using the computers on an authentic task, i.e. running the community center, with very little direct instruction. Did she feel she had learned much, or would she have rather have had more conventional classes? "Oh yes", she said, she felt she had learned a lot with the Emergent Design method. She said "Siento realizada.", that is "I feel realized.".

 

The Development Phase

     During the next phase of the fieldwork, which I consider as having lasted for approximately one month, the education program at the community computer center was being continually developed by Maritza with the assistance of a growing cadre of new volunteers from the La Herencia community. For example, typing classes were added to the curriculum at the suggestion of one of the volunteers. In the evenings I continued to conduct Emergent Design workshops with adults, although these were gradually being reduced as the program operated by Maritza continued to expand. New students, mostly children, were signing up every day and our computer resources were quite limited. Clearly the most active community issue at that moment was the development and use of the community computer center itself.

     After the brief initiation phase the general pattern of operation for the community computer center was established. Maritza and several other members of the Emergent Design workshop became very active in running the program at the computer center. Other members of the original group drifted away, and new volunteers arrived and joined into the activity under Maritza's leadership.

     Knowing a lot of people in the community Maritza seemed to be adept at finding volunteers. This was also a reflection of the community's interest in education. These volunteers were mainly mothers of the children taking classes or teenagers from the neighborhood. In one or two cases I think perhaps parents sent their kids to volunteer as a way to keep them involved in a constructive activity during the summer while school was not in session. Some of the volunteers did not last long whereas others stayed and eventually formed into a core group of "regulars" at the center.

     There continued to be a great deal of interest in enrolling kids in the computer classes, and periodically the classes would fill up. However after a few weeks many of the children would stop coming, making it possible for others to enter the classes. At some point Maritza and Montero decided to reduce the class time in order to accommodate more students. Previously students had been scheduled for one hour daily, five days per week. Montero or Maritza had the idea of making it two or three hours per week, so that double the number of students could be accommodated. Soon there were about 200 students enrolled in the computer center.

     Montero was not nearly as active in the computer center as Maritza. He worked outside of the Colonia and was never there during the day. However he would often stop by in the evenings and it was apparent he was interested in the progress being made at the computer center. On one occasion he made a comment to me that he thought we should say something to the other members of the original group who had drifted away, although I did not take it upon myself to do so.

     The Emergent Design approach is based on "learning by doing" as is Dewey's pedagogy, and Maritza and the other volunteers had a lot of experience during this phase in using the computers for authentic tasks related to running the center. They made ID cards for all the students, flyers, attendance records and other documents as part of running the school. Occasionally Maritza would ask a question about how to do something on the computer either to me or one of the other volunteers who had more computer experience. However overall she seemed to need very little help and she seemed to manage quite well without the benefit of having had formal classes on computer use. In fact she mentioned to me once that a student had complimented her on her computer proficiency and been surprised to learn that Maritza had only been using computers for a few months.

     Part of the process of community formation within the program had to do with establishing norms and procedures for the center. As I mentioned above Maritza was very involved in this from the beginning. She made a number of decisions in August such as to begin to have classes on Mondays. Previously the center had only been open from Tuesday through Saturday. There were also a lot of decisions to be made concerning community center rules, the use of the internet, care of the computers, and the like. Maritza and the other volunteers made rules and printed them on the computers and posted them around the center. It was the kind of "learning by doing" that accomplished not only mastering the computer but also helping to address an authentic need in the community.

     Not all of the new ideas which surfaced ultimately became norms or practices at the computer center. For example one day Maritza brought in a flyer she had come across from a psychologist who gave educational talks through a government-sponsored education program. She suggested that perhaps we could arrange for this psychologist to give some talks for the community at the computer center. Our room was very big and had movable dividers so that multiple activities could take place simultaneously. When Montero stopped by that evening I mentioned the idea to him, and Maritza showed him the information she had about the program. Montero felt that it would be better to find a psychologist through the church because he felt that the other psychologist might present views which were at odds with the churches views. Maritza acquiesced to Montero's objection and the idea was dropped.

     During this phase while these day classes were going on largely under the direction of Maritza with help from other volunteers, I still continued to run the evening sessions with adults using the Emergent Design workshop format. However no other projects emerged from these sessions. People would come in and use the computers, but there seemed to be very little spontaneous interest among the participants in working together on topics of shared interest. On several occasions I conducted brainstorming sessions to make list of possible group projects. But afterwards none of these ideas were picked up by the students, who seemed to prefer to use the computers individually. I'm sure that had I made it a requirement of the workshops the students would have readily worked on group projects. However it seemed to me that there was little point in organizing group projects if there wasn't spontaneous interest in doing so on the part of the students. I agreed on this point with something that I had read by L.J. Hanifan, the first major proponent of social capital theory. Hanifan had written that if a community center assists to prepare the proper foundation within a community, spontaneous community projects will emerge on their own when the time is right. However Hanifan felt that there is little to be gained by trying to promote the process of community action until such time as community members on their own begin to feel the need to act.

     As it happened around the end of August some of the volunteers who were working with Maritza on their own initiative decided to organize formal computer classes for the entire day. Seeing this as an authentic community interest, I discontinued working with the evening classes and these hours of the computer lab time were taken over by volunteers, as I will described in the following section.

 

Analysis of the Development Phase

     During this phase the process of social learning continued in a manner consistent with Cavallo's emergent design theory and Dewey's theory of the active self. The learning which occurred was an integral part of addressing an authentic social need, and was not something abstract or apart from the functioning of the social group. It was "learning by doing".

     Just as the general decision whether or not to volunteer at the center exemplifies Dewey's model of the active self, so do the many different small decisions made in the process of this volunteering. For example, during this phase one of the volunteers suggested that we ought to be teaching touch typing skills, something we previously had not been doing. She brought a copy of a typing book into the center, which showed the recommended finger positions for the keyboard and contained exercises for the students. We copied some pages from this book and began to use these lessons with the students. In this case the action of the volunteer was expressing her individual vision of how she thought the center should be organized, and at the same time she was implicitly making a statement about who she was or how she related to the social system of the community computer center. In fact this simple act of recommending the typing classes could be seen as not only an assertion about who the volunteer was, and what the volunteer thought the social system should be, but also implicitly as a tacit statement of the relationship between the volunteer and the social system.

     When thus interpreted through the lens of Dewey's model of the "active self" both individual identity and the social system are seen as in a continuous process of development. All of this social and psychological process is fundamentally rooted in economics. The process implicitly hinges upon issues about how property within the social domain will be used. For example, in the case of the typing lessons, the volunteer was implicitly arguing for an alternative use for the computers, which were property within the domain of the social system. To the extent that the computers were used for typing lessons, this precluded their simultaneous use in other ways. Thus the individual who brought in the typing book and advocated for the typing lessons was leveraging her own time and resources along with the resources in the social system to help create a computer center more in keeping with her subjective vision of how the center ought to operate. Achieving this end hinged on the use of social resources and the property rights defined for these resources within the social system.

 

The Networking Phase

     One of the first and most surprising developments was the rapid establishment of regular computer classes within the center. One of the young volunteers, an outgoing high school student who had originally come to the computer center to do homework and then stayed to become a volunteer, decided apparently on his own that we ought to be teaching lessons on computer usage including lecture classes. He talked to several of his friends about this, and they organized this program among themselves. I first realized something was happening when I saw a notice posted on the wall that computer classes would be beginning the following Monday and that everyone should bring a notebook and a pen or pencil. I asked Maritza what was going on, and she told me that this young man said that he and several of the high school age volunteers were going to begin teaching classes.

     The young people planned to teach the classes in the evenings and they had asked Maritza and another adult volunteer to teach the classes during the day hours. At one point I saw Maritza and the other woman going over the notes of the material the young man had asked them to present. They seemed a bit skeptical of the idea of these new classes, but I could infer from the fact that they were reviewing the material that they were willing to give it a try.

     Although these computer classes seemed to take a little while to get off the ground, sure enough within a few weeks the young people had begun to teach daily classes which continued throughout the duration of my time in Colonia La Herencia. At first there were three instructors involved, the young man whose idea I believe it had all been, and two other young women from the community who were friends of his. Later the group of instructors grew and began teaching in the mornings as well. I never saw Maritza or any of the adult volunteers teaching these classes, but Maritza clearly had accepted that the computer lectures by the young teachers were now an integral part of the functioning of the community computer center and everyone who came for classes after this time was signed up with one of the young instructors.

     The computer center has movable room dividers and was arranged into a computer area, a waiting room area and three classroom areas. The young instructors, who were all around 15 years old I believe, would teach their classes every day in the classroom areas. From what I saw they taught the basics of Windows and Microsoft office as well as covering topics like the parts of the computer, types of memory, etc. Within a few weeks the instructors had created course manuals for their students. After the lectures they would reserve time with the computers so that the students could practice what they had been taught.

     I was very impressed with them and the initiative they had taken to set up this program on their own, without being asked to do so, and how well they were teaching. They seemed very competent, intelligent and poised as instructors, and I was really impressed with the work they were doing for free to help their community. It was material that they had apparently learned in technical high school, and they were teaching it to students who were both much younger than them, and also to some students who were much older than them. I think too it was a great experience for them as instructors and would probably help them later on as they went further in school. Much of the credit for these classes goes to the one young man who had apparently had the idea of starting the program, and had arranged it with his friends and with Maritza. Had this one individual not been willing to do this on his own initiative the program may never have happened. These classes could also be interpreted as another example of Dewey's concept of the active self.

     In addition to the computer classes, there was a lot of interest in getting academic classes going at the community center. Mexico has a very active program of open classes for equivalency degrees which is known as INEA, representing what we would call the National Institute for Adult Education. INEA corresponds to the GED program in the States, although INEA covers not just high school but primary school as well. Persons 15 years old or older who haven't finished regular schools go to INEA study centers and study the material they would have covered in regular school. Then through a system of examinations they can obtain primary and secondary school completion certificates. At one of our evening sessions of the Emergent Design groups someone from the study group had suggested that we establish an INEA program at the community computer center. Maritza obtained a letter from the church office requesting the program, and after several trips to the INEA offices to finalize the arrangements the Colonia La Herencia Community Computer Center was established as an INEA program site.

     Maritza made several posters promoting the INEA program, and volunteers were found who would work with the INEA students. In the case of INEA they have already a very well established program. It simply had not been active in Colonia La Herencia. INEA is also a free program, and my impression is that it is a very good program. When it was establish at the community computer center the INEA brought with it not only new volunteer teachers but also a large quantity of new books for the students. From the standpoint of the community, the INEA program could be considered a resource which had previously been latent in the Colonia, i.e. latent social capital for Colonia La Herencia. Many people if not most people in the Colonia already knew about the INEA program, and they knew that it was needed, but it took certain conditions to inspire several individuals who were willing to take voluntary action which was not going to be compensated in order for this program to come about in the Colonia. This again according to my definition, is an example of social capital.

     It also illustrates the advantage of using a more pragmatic definition of social capital based on actions rather than based on prevailing norms or associations. Generally speaking INEA programs are normal in the metropolitan area where La Herencia is located. There simply did not happen to be a program in La Herencia. It took actions rather than a prevailing norm to start the process. I suspect that had these several individuals not taken it upon themselves to make the contact with INEA, the program most probably still would not exist in the Colonia. It took a certain amount of work to get the process going. In the case of the INEA program I would say it took perhaps 20 hours of work on the part of community volunteers to set up the program, prior to the actual starting of the classes. While this is a small amount of time in relation to the benefit it produced, the program in all likelihood would never have gotten off the ground had not several individuals from the community gotten behind it enthusiastically and made these initial efforts. Thus, as discussed in chapter two above, a pragmatic definition of social capital based on what Dewey called "overt action" proving will seems the more relevant definition of social capital.

     Several other educational programs were also added to the community center during this phase. During the summer prior to the opening of the community computer center I had met an individual who spoke English very well at a community event. I mentioned to him that the community center would be opening and that if he was interested we could use English teachers. I hadn't seen this person for a few months, but one day he walked in and told Maritza he would like to begin teaching. He offered to teach two hours daily, but we suggested he begin with fewer hours out of concern that he might rapidly burn out teaching two hours daily. He agreed to teach in the afternoons twice weekly, and his classes were very popular from the beginning.

     Another teacher who used the community computer center on several occasions was a young woman who was a volunteer health promoter from a nonprofit healthcare organization based in another part of the city. This program trains health educators who work with different neighborhoods around the city doing community work. This particular individual had been running a group activity for senior citizens for some time in Colonia La Herencia, and on several occasions she conducted programs for the senior citizens in her group in one of the classrooms at the computer center.

     Although the community computer center is a relatively new program, over time more and more individuals within the Colonia were making use of the center. These individuals were helping the community, providing social capital, and also in the process taking actions which expressed their identities and in large and small ways helping to create the kind of community they felt La Herencia should be.

 

Analysis of the Networking Phase

     In the networking phase, as with the other phases of this fieldwork, we say many examples of voluntary prosocial behavior apparently undertaken for the social good. We saw many examples of individuals who seemed to be behaving consistent with Dewey's model of the active self. Based on this review of my experiences in conducting the fieldwork in Colonia La Herencia, it seems clear that individuals do often act in ways consistent with Dewey's model of the active self. Basically this process can be seen as having three components. First of all, there is the subjective input of the individuals who undertake the prosocial behavior. Secondly there must be some resources within the social domain to be leveraged by these individuals. Finally, there must be some organizational structure to moderate the process.

     Consistent with Dewey's model, and as the volunteers at the computer center illustrate, individuals are interested in social systems, in this case the system of how the computer center was organized. These individuals contribute their own efforts to leverage assets already within the social system to create social capital. Conceptually for example the individuals who were teaching were using social resources, the computers and the classroom space, along with their own efforts, to share their knowledge of computers with others. Although I did not measure this, it is clear that social capital was being created as more individuals gained knowledge about how to use computers. Prosocial behavior in the community was helping to create social capital within the Colonia, made possible by the presence of the computer center.

Very preliminary draft: Please do not quote without permission.
Comments welcome at KenDaniszewski@yahoo.com
© Copyright by Kenneth Stanley Daniszewski 2004