Tracing Agency in a Middle School, Youth Participatory Action Research Class

• In Event: 63.084 - MTCC Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 63.084-4 - Looking Beyond the Surface

Abstract

Situated in one of New York City’s most ethnically diverse middle schools, this study highlights a critical ethnographic study that used multimodal and ethnographic methodologies to excavate the experiences of 7th and 8th grade students enrolled in 13 sections of a newly implemented Youth Participatory Action Research course. In this year-long course, students were apprenticed as critical social researchers of educational issues while simultaneously provided with opportunities to utilize digital media toward civic ends. This study traces the agentive identity enactments of participants as they respond to systemic inequities in education through multiple literacies.

Author

• Danielle R. Filipiak, University of Connecticut - Storrs