Making and Civic Engagement: A Heart-Shaped Expression of Community Response

• In Event: 66.058 - Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: 66.058-13 - Youth Voices in the Social Contexts of Educational Research

Abstract

This paper presents a multimedia design and implementation project as an expression of young women’s experiences and an exploration of their local community. Using an ethnographic perspective and CHAT as an analytical frame, we observed 7 Latina students (aged 12-15) in an afterschool center. Students were tasked with creating a Maker artifact to display data from a community survey, and produced an interactive Word Cloud. There were 4 stages involved in the project, each involving a dynamic expression of place, participant roles and goals, and problem solving. We found three significant tensions across stages and settings: 1) Individual versus collective preferences for expression, 2) Possible design features given tool limitations and 3) Adult proscribed versus student driven setting of goals.

Authors

• Jasmine Kyle McBeath, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Richard P. Duran, University of California - Santa Barbara