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The global
economy is changing the nature of work, and the centrality of human capital.
Rapidly evolving technologies are creating a global network, which will
highly value an elite group of thinkers and workers.
Three types
of jobs will dominate the 21st century as noted by Brandeis economist
Robert Reich in The Work of Nations. Those include:
- Low Level
Service providers
- Unique
Skilled Service provides
- Identifiers
of problems & problem solvers
At the top
of the new worker hierarchy are those persons who can quickly and efficiently
identify and solve problems using technological resources.
The new elite
work force will be composed of those persons who have advanced levels
of critical thinking and technological skills, that will allow them to
identify issues, find appropriate information, quickly analyze the situation,
and solve problems using available resources.
These power brokers of the future
will have fused "library literacy, computer literacy, media literacy,
technological literacy, ethics, critical thinking and communication skills
(Work Group on Information Competence, Commission on Learning Resources
and Instructional Technology, 1995, p.4).
The
benefits and the burdens of the emerging economy will create inequalities
of wealth and power that will surpass the trends of the past two centuries.
As educators the question that we must struggle with is how best to position
Black Studies students for the more intense competition that the rapidly
changing economic structure will demand?
One
way to achieve a better social balance might be through the integration
of information competency skills in higher education, in general, and
at California State University Long Beach, in particular. By teaching
information competency skills to Black Studies students we can hope to:
- Gain advantage
of the new economic dynamism by providing students with the intellectual
tools required to develop new modes of social resistance;
- Foster
critical thinking skills that challenge the status quo;
- Create
scholars/activists who can research and write about the effects of unfettered
capitalism on the African American community in the 21st century.
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