Digital Space as Discursive Space: Students' Articulations of Their Educational Wants and Needs

• In Event: 29.033 - Political Space, Deliberation, and Collective Action: Students, Teachers, and Parents as Socially Conscious Actors

Abstract

As NCLB and other governmental policies shape the educational landscape, students are often left at the margins of decision making about their educational wants and needs (Rubin & Silva, 2003). Scholars have spoken of the ways youth come together and deliberate about educational issues that concern them through organized structures such as grassroots organizations (Rogers, et al. 2012) or youth participatory action research programs (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). This study examines what happens when students do this in the digital space—outside of official spaces of decision-making. Within such spaces, what do students deliberate about and articulate regarding their educational wants and needs?

Digital space expands discursive space (Constanza-Chock, 2014) and is an opportunity for students to bring forth their own political spaces that “both inform and are informed by the material circumstances of everyday life” (McCann 1999, p. 164). Their engagement with political issues is enabled by technology and social connectivity as they engage with blogs and post comments, create online groups and circulate news stories in a context that is shaped by peers (Kahne, et al. 2014).

I drew from two sources of data for this study: 1) the comments section of a student-created change.org petition directed at a district superintendent to help reinstate a secondary teacher that was not rehired by the current school administration to return next school year, and 2) semi-structured interviews with three of the petition’s student organizers/supporters. The petition drew over 600 signatures and over 200 comments were posted. I identified and examined comments that revealed coming from students’ perspectives. The interviews with organizers/supporters sought to examine the role of digital space in their deliberations and articulations of a collective student voice.

Students drew from their everyday educational experiences to articulate their concerns about the learning environment at their urban high school. I found that students cared about their school and saw signing this petition as a way to articulate the following: 1) they wanted a school where they could enjoy being students and have a memorable learning experience, 2) as they understood that teachers and students were both impacted by the same educational environment, students called for the nurturing of teacher professionalism and respect by the school administration, and 3) they wanted to have a voice in decision-making to offset the power of school administration as sole decision makers at the school.

The actions of these students, via an online petition, highlights the importance of space in the digital age, where students engage in participatory politics that is on one level peer-influenced and free of control and domination from adult-created rules and parameters, and at another level, part of the overall changing landscape of political life and engagement (Kahne, et al. 2014). If we can conceive of students as “experts” of their everyday life experiences, then we should also take seriously what they have to say about their education. A starting point is the spaces they create where they voice their concerns.

Author

• Claudia Diera, University of California - Los Angeles