Intersection of Racial Awareness and Identity Development: Secondary Language Arts Students Engaging in Online Discussion

• In Event: Classroom-Based Civic and Intersectional Identities

Abstract

With participants in language arts classes in a rural high school, this study explored students’ racial awareness and perceptions through text-based online discussion. Investigating students’ online chat discussions and reflective writings allowed for tracing the ways students expressed critical awareness and beliefs about race and identity, and how students’ linguistic and cultural heritage intersected with their awareness of historical and political events, to form their understandings about race. Students offered various definitions of the term “race,” revealing their beliefs and critical awareness of current and historical events. Students were inventive with language, incorporating translanguaging in their comments along with colloquialism, slang, and cursing. CMD afforded opportunities for students to connect to their heritage, expanding their perspectives about racism and equality.

Author

• J. Hannah Park, University of Wisconsin - Madison