Real Community in Virtual Spaces: Online Pedagogies for Justice and Social Action

• In Event: Together Apart: Online Community, Healing, and Racial Justice During the Pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth programs typically sustained in arts-driven community spaces were necessarily transformed into online communities. This paper draws on qualitative data collected throughout the 2020-2021 academic year as part of a collaboration between an early college program and two community-based programs grounded in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Building on a conceptualization of the "cypher" as a pedagogical stance, we consider the following questions: How were new pedagogies forged as we engaged in restorative practices and collaborative inquiry? What were the literacies that emerged in the context of activism? How can YPAR and student-adult collaboration for online learning disrupt institutional inequities in schools and communities? We will share some of the ways in which these physically-distanced but socially-connected online communities engaged with YPAR principles and multiple literacies, in order to discuss implications for social justice education and anti-racist research and practice.

Authors

• Limarys Caraballo, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Mijin Yeom, Queens College, City University of New York

• Anthony Wheeler, The Graduate Center, CUNY

• Olivia A. McNeill, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Sofia Meadows-Muriel, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Jayna Tavarez, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Aliyah Martinez, Cyphers for Justice

• William DeFermin Muñoz, Cyphers for Justice

• Jordon Comrie, Cyphers for Justice

• Sikirat Mustapha, Cyphers for Justice

• Elkin Mantilla, Cyphers for Justice