Designing for Spatial Imagination to Enhance Participation and Agency: Insights From Translocal Youth Radio

• In Event: Permeable and Dynamic Contexts and Ecologies of Learning and Development

Abstract

Translocal Youth Radio connected multilingual students in Catalonia and Colorado through the exchange of youth media products and virtual encounters. The goal of the project was to enhance the ability of immigrant youth to critically examine the conditions of their lives and communities through youth media projects, to develop multimedia communication skills, and to reflect upon the similarities and differences in the realities of Spanish-speaking youth from immigrant families in another country. This paper proposes an exploratory framework for studying and designing for spatial imagination in educational settings. Drawing on illustrative examples from a year-long ethnographic study, the framework combines postructural and critical theories of space in education with research on imagination and culture from sociocultural psychology.

Author

• Dana Walker, University of Northern Colorado