Iterative Identity: Reengaging Youth in Alternative High Schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Learning Sciences SIG Roundtable: Issues in Identity Development

Abstract

In order to stem the tide of high school dropouts in public education educators must understand how to re-engage youth who have disconnected from school. The process of re-engaging students in their education includes youth renegotiating their identities as learners, a process that is often in tension with their past educational experiences and their out-of-school lives. Using ethnographic methods, this paper examines how youth identities develop as they enter into alternative schools and the resources available for youth to develop their identities as learners. Results focus on the use of iteration as the youth renegotiate their identities of learners in the alternative school context, being provided repeated opportunities to interact with and reflect on specific practices and ideational resources.

Author

• Gavin Tierney, University of Washington