The Civic Geographies of Connected Learning: Fostering Civic Engagement Across Time, Space, and Scale

• In Event: 66.067 - Learning Sciences: Processes of Learning and Interaction in Context

Abstract

This paper advances theoretical and pedagogical reinterpretations of connected learning, which advocates robust participation in peer-supported and interest-driven learning oriented toward academic, economic, and civic engagement. Specifically, we interrogate the spatiotemporal contours of youth political opportunity, challenging how connected learning critiques the imagined geographies of classrooms, civic settings, and the permeability of political participation. Through relational theories of space and place, we reimagine new geographies of political opportunity for youth in terms of civic geographies. Our connective ethnography examines two cases: Metro: Building Blocks and the Michigan Student Caucus. By making available the boundary crossings and varied cadences of people, resources, and information in shared activity, our cases challenge connected learning to reorient civic engagement across space and time.

Authors

• Ty Hollett, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jeremiah Holden Kalir, University of Colorado - Denver