Whose Digital Revolution? Critical Issues in Adolescents' On- and Offline Literacies

• In Event: 18.021 - Critical Issues in Adolescent Literacy Research: Practices, Pedagogies, and Possibilities

Abstract

Purpose
The so-called “digital revolution” in education, often signalled by phrases such as flipped classrooms, personalized learning, and gamification, has been met in some circles with unbridled enthusiasm. Despite this, a growing body of scholarship has begun to reveal how certain adoptions of digital technologies in education have had more of a regressive, rather than a revolutionary impact, serving to reproduce (and in some cases, exacerbate) the existing socioeconomic inequities we hoped they would combat (Noble, 2018; Hicks, 2017; Toyama, 2015; O'Neil, 2016). In this paper, I develop a critical examination of these issues as they relate to the online and offline literacy practices of adolescents to the degree that these literacies are sanctioned across formal and informal educational spaces.

Perspectives
This work is grounded in a view of literacies and technologies as socioculturally-situated phenomena (Gee, 2010). Such a perspective conceives of both literacies and technologies (digital or otherwise) as embedded in social practices, as well inseparable from the social, historical, political, and economic contexts in which these practices are situated. Thus, rather than an ideologically “neutral” framing of literacy as a singular set of cognitive skills involving the technology of written language, such a view recognizes a multitude of literacy practices as diverse as the people who engage in them, though not all of these practices are equally valued or sanctioned by the institutions of our society, including our schooling systems.

Modes of Inquiry and Evidence
In keeping with this framing, this paper takes the form of a conceptual synthesis (Nutley, 2002), highlighting several examples of school-sanctioned literacy practices that have been examined in empirical studies in literacy education, and contrasting these with several less-sanctioned literacy practices that have developed in contexts beyond formal classrooms (Moje 2000). Literacy practices highlighted include distributed mentorship in online adolescent fan fiction communities (Campbell et al., 2016; Black, 2008), youth activism in online public spaces (Mirra & Garcia, 2017), and code-meshing across digital and print media publications (Young et al., 2014; Michael-Luna & Canagarajah, 2007). Despite their association with out-of-school contexts, I argue that these examples may hold important lessons for educators considering critical issues in adolescent literacy in an age of near-ubiquitous digital technologies.

Findings Across Studies
Based on this conceptual synthesis of existing literature, I argue that the institutional sanctioning of literacy practices is often signalled by differences in the framing of literacy as 1) an individual or distributed achievement, 2) a tool for cultural reproduction or social change, and 3) a means of signalling status or developing inclusivity. Moreover, decisions about which literacy practices to sanctioned in institutions in itself can carry connotations about whose literacies are valued over others, particularly in the context of working with marginalized and minoritized students.

Scholarly Significance
This conceptual synthesis contributes to the current literature on adolescent literacy instruction and practice by illuminating critical issues in adolescent digital literacies and suggesting new pedagogical possibilities for educations seeking to engage in critical literacies as a vehicle for social change.

Author

• Earl Aguilera, California State University - Fresno