Constructing Identities From Shared Affinities: Youth and the Enactment of Critical Digital Literacy

• In Event: 47.094 - Critical Digital Literacies in a "Post-Truth" Era

Abstract

We present work from two ethnographic studies and identify points of convergence among them. Specifically, we explore how youth in two affinity groups enacted critical digital literacies and (per)formed identity/ies. In the first study, youth came to self-identify as “emergent technology experts,” connecting their out-of-school learning practices to their imagined futures. The second study describes participants traversing in- and out-of-school spaces, employing digital and analog tools to participate in manga fandom.

We explore intersections among individual and group identity formation and the (digital) literacies youth enact together (Laman & Van Sluys, 2008). Both presenters document work with affinity groups (Gee, 2004, 2010; Jenkins, 2006a), which feature “low barriers to entry, support for creating and sharing, informal mentoring of newcomers, and a strong sense of social connection” (Hickey et al., 2010, p. 107). The studies draw on critical literacy (Janks, 2010), New Literacy Studies (Street, 1995), and Connected Learning (Ito et al., 2013) to analyze youths’ cultural production, meaning-making practices, and identity formation across physical and digital domains. We also draw upon scholarship on popular culture (Hagood, 2009; Morrell, 2002) to examine how youths’ learning is (dis)connected across contexts (Hull & Schultz, 2002).

Both studies combine ethnographic methods and participant-observation. Over eighteen months, Presenter 1 met weekly with a group of boys in a community center technology room. Assuming the role of coordinator (Freire, 1973), he initiated discussions about the boys’ coding, 3-D drafting, and graphic design practices, and the connection to their educational trajectories. Presenter 2 examined youth participation in online/offline manga fan communities (Bitz, 2009; Black, 2009; Magnifico et al., 2015), over ten months in a school library. Presenter 2 employed Simon’s (2012) concept of connoisseurship as a framework for learning about and incorporating students’ literacies into his practice as group facilitator (Author 2, 2015).

Both presenters recorded audio of their respective research sites, in addition to conducting semi-structured interviews (Weiss, 1994), writing fieldnotes and analytic memos (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 2011), and collecting participant-made writings and multimodal artifacts. Analysis is informed by multimodal and design-based frameworks (e.g., Rowsell, 2012).


1. The group-directed nature of critical inquiries within affinity spaces, and reflection upon those practices, allows youth to develop conceptions of themselves and other group members as "emergent experts" and connects their present out-of-school learning to imagined futures.
2. Insider knowledge can create meaningful connections among socioculturally disparate youth. The inquiries generated within affinity groups connect to critical social practices that inform relationships across learning environments.
3. Youth do not consider divisions between 1) in- and out-of-school literacies, 2) online and offline spaces, and 3) analog and digital tools to be dichotomous; they navigate them productively and creatively.

Group identity formation is pivotal in understanding how young people come to make meaning of their civic and public lives. Together, these studies inform conceptions of how youth critically engage with tools and environments, and how educators may capitalize on their practices in ways that are directly relevant to the lives and learning of students.

Authors

• Carlos Martínez-Cano, University of Pennsylvania

• David Eric Low, California State University - Fresno