The National Science Foundation’s Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings awarded $2,249,999 to Oakland, California-based nonprofit YR Media — a “media, technology and music training center and platform for emerging BIPOC content creators who are using their voices to change the world” — to teach “underrepresented” and “underserved” youth how to integrate critical theory with artificial intelligence technologies.
Starting in 2019, the grant titled “Innovative approaches to Informal Education in Artificial Intelligence” allocated millions of dollars to YR Media to “research, design, and develop innovative approaches focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for under-represented youth ages 14-24.”
The program, consisting of participants who “are 90% youth of color and 80% low income,” involved partnerships with the MIT Media Lab and Google staff and was “grounded in sociocultural learning theory” predicated on a “theoretical framework” of “Computational Thinking plus Critical Pedagogy.”
Critical pedagogy is an educational framework and broader social cause that is derived from and applies methods emphasized in the broader social philosophy of critical theory stemming from the cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School. Other derivatives of critical theory are the well-known concept of critical race theory and the myriad critical approaches to human sexuality stressing identitarian power struggles.
Emphasizing the sociocultural component of the program, the grant poses a series of questions like: “What do underrepresented youth understand about AI and its role in society?” and “What are the features of an engaging ethics-centered pedagogy with AI?”
It further affirms the program’s divisive
