Understanding Individual and Group Identities in an After-School Media Club

• In Event: Metaphors of Identity and Literacy: What Do They Say About the Questions We Ask?

Abstract

Purposes
We draw on data collected as part of a longitudinal case study of an afterschool media club, which ran weekly in the computer lab space of one public school, and involved children in years 4 to 7 and media researchers. The media club was a space of belonging, where the children interacted with peers, adults, technologies and texts in ways that provided new opportunities for identities building. In this paper we draw on the metaphor of identity as difference and consider the entanglements evident in the relations of people, materials, technologies and texts that resulted when children came together to learn about media and literacies in the media club space.

Theoretical Framework
Schooling and classroom contexts are spaces where children’s identities are constructed, often in ways that essentialize who they are and limit the representations possible of their futures. The various contexts in which children live their lives, open opportunities to be in relation to other people, materials, ways of knowing, texts and technologies, and in this way to build identities as individuals and as a part of a cohort. As Moje and Luke (2009) explain, identification as part of a group or cohort “often remains stable for individuals across time and contexts” (p. 420). However, contexts like the media club open possibilities for different identities to be taken up. In this paper, we bring forward conceptualizations of identity as difference to provide insights into how the media club children developed themselves as they developed media, literacy and technology skills and capacities.

Methods
This paper presents a longitudinal case study of an afterschool media club in a school that serviced a community of high poverty. The media club was designed to provide children with access to technologies and opportunities to learn media and digital literacies. Media researchers and children met on a weekly basis to engage with a diverse range of media and technologies (e.g. digital game design, music making, image production). The analysis of children’s engagement and creations provided opportunities to consider the shifting and multiple identities developed in this outside school space.

Data Sources
Data includes a large corpus of artefacts produced by children attending the media club, as well as images, interviews and reflections of the children and researchers involved.

Findings
The children who participated in this study addressed media club as one of multiple identity forming contexts that they engaged within. By tracing several of the media club participants across the duration of participation in media club, and then into their classroom contexts as well, we are able to provide exemplars that frame identity as difference. The participating children who attended media club actively sought to find new ways to represent themselves.

Significance
Attending school can enable children to take up certain identities and not others. In this paper we provide empirical examples of how different contexts can open opportunities for children to take up diverse identities and provide insights into how learning contexts within schools might also provide these opportunities.

Authors

• Annette Woods, Queensland University of Technology

• Amanda Levido, Queensland University of Technology