Utilizing Youth Participatory Action Research to Explore the Pedagogical Possibilities of Digital and Critical Literacy

• In Event: Popular Media Culture, Hip-Hop, and Mexican Corridos: Honoring Young People’s Multiple Literacies

Abstract

The black and brown students navigating the urban education system are far more likely than their suburban counterparts to be court-involved, working-class members of our citizenry who indeed hold strong ideas about the issues that pervade their world, but feel helpless in the face of the goliathan task of ever addressing them. Efforts to redress the inequities that we/they face, must attend to 1) their community cultural wealth (Yosso 2006) and 2) the increasingly relevant digital platforms being navigated by our 21st century youth. The work of critical literacy must attend to the socio-political and cultural influences embedded within these digital communities and how they function through the prism of black and brown literacies (Alim & Smitherman 2012). This research study draws on Critical Literacy Studies, Digital Literacy Studies (Eshet-Alkalai 2004), and Critical Media Pedagogy to investigate how these virtual spaces can be engaged by inner-city youth of color for the cultivation of Critical Literacy within an afterschool setting. Utilizing a Youth Particpatory Action Research (YPAR) model centered on the affirmation and co-production of student-knowledge (Morrell 2008), students theorized about the implications of this work for the English classroom.
This research study was conducted over six-months in an afterschool literacy organization, which focuses on spoken word and hip-hop pedagogy for urban education. Five student-researchers, ages 16-19, who all identify as spoken word artists, were trained in digital literacy, critical studies, and YPAR to create a digital spoken word youth community. This platform of live-streamed workshops, social media integration, and peer-mentorship served as a space for a) critical analysis of a transgenre space of youth production (i.e. spoken word and digital literacy), b) youth leadership, and c) digital innovations. Data collected included screenshots of social media interactions, in-depth interviews, and session audio recordings. Methods of analysis included Critical Discourse Analysis, Cultural Domain Analysis, and the coding of emergent themes. Students left the study with plans of action, inquiries around further engaging digital literacy and spoken word intersections for justice initiatives, and reported that the participatory model was central to feelings of affirmation and eagerness to continue learning. This study demonstrates the power of participatory methods to investigate and push the possibilities of student literacies as they exist across the classroom, home, community, and digital landscapes.

Author

• Jamila Lyiscott, Teachers College, Columbia University