"Please Stop Being That Nice, Please?" Intersections, Near Misses, and Collisions as Youth and Mentors Connect Online

• In Event: 42.082 - Reimagining Online: Fostering Inclusivity, Engagement, and Participation in a Digital Age

Abstract

1. Objectives and Theoretical Framework
A rich body of research has documented and theorized learning and development that emerges from university and community connections—through, for example, the practice-oriented lens of service learning (Strom, 2009), the critical examination of notions of communities as “contact zones” (Pratt, 1999), and theory-driven, design-based research (Penuel, Fishman, Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011). Drawing on such perspectives, we have studied and iteratively improved after-school programs in local communities that operate in affiliation with our campus (e.g., Author, 2006; Author, 2009; Author, 2014). We’ve been especially interested in providing access for local youth to different kinds of cutting-edge digital media and to learning how young people from non-dominant communities make, share, and curate digital artifacts, and how they interact, learn, and develop in offline and online spaces.

In our previous research, and in much of the related literature, there are few examinations of the interactional work whereby relationships are fostered between community youth and their mentors, in this case university students (cf. Gleason, 2011). The purpose of our current research is (1) to explore how diverse youth from local communities and their undergraduate mentors formed relationships via a designed online social environment; (2) identify emergent media practices ; and (3) delineate the fault lines that can fracture burgeoning relationships and the cultural bridges that can span them. We extend our previous work to take into account the embodiment of narratives of self in relationship building—gestures, social cues, and other interactive competencies (Ehret & Hollett, 2014; Vossoughi, 2014) .

2. Methods/Data
Study participants included sixty middle school students at three schools located in urban, low-income neighborhoods and twenty undergraduate students at a university in the San Francisco Bay area. We triangulated multiple data sources, collected over two semesters, and engaged in the following types of data analysis: (1) inductively-coded field notes and semi-structured interviews; (2) targeted discourse analysis; and (3) multimodal analysis of digital artifacts;

3. Findings
Our analyses make clear that relationship building wasn’t simple or straightforward, especially when the primary interactional context is online: “Please stop being that nice please,” directed one middle school student to her too eager university mentor during one such online interaction. Yet the relationships that emerged were also at times transformative, for both youth and undergraduates, as each crossed borders that separated universities from local communities. Our findings are organized around two themes: (1) Perceptions of authenticity: The multimodal affordances of videos combined with the kind of narrative experience provided through video watching intensified student engagement, opening new and powerful discoveries about each others’ identities; and (2) Virtual and embodied relationships: Participants used online tools to maintain “real” relationships that were established in person.

4. Significance
As universities and other educational institutions establish online courses and increasingly turn to social media for communication, there is a need to carefully examine relationship-building in academic spaces. Our research provides a useful first step in examining teaching and learning at the intersection of virtual and physical experiences.

Authors

• José Ramón Lizárraga, University of California - Berkeley

• Jason Sellers, University of California - Berkeley