A Framework for Understanding the Roles of Literacy in the Identity Enactments of Marginalized Youth

• In Event: Revisiting Literacies and Identities: Agency, Intertextuality, and Positioning in Learning Spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a framework with which to understand the roles of literacy in the identity enactments of marginalized youth. Recent research has contributed to our awareness of identity negotiations and the positionings of multiple stakeholders in the educative process (Begum, 2014; Hall et al., 2010; Hull & Zacher, 2007; Lewis & Moje, 2007; Worthham, 2004). However, there are tensions regarding possibilities for agentive re-positionings and identity fashionings, as well as disparate descriptions of the uses to which actors put literacy as they construct identities (cf. Gee, 2001; Moje & Luke, 2009). The proposed framework is grounded in socio-cultural theoretical work on identity formation, negotiation, and positioning (Bakhtin, 1981; Bourdieu, 1977; Davies & Harré, 1990; Holland et al., 1998; Vagan, 2011). We engaged in three methodological steps to create the framework. In step one, we reviewed the aforementioned key theories of identity enactment, and created a skeleton framework.
In step two, we applied the framework to previously analyzed findings from our studies, asking two questions of each study’s findings: In what strategies do actors engage as they negotiate proffered subject positions? And, what roles do literacies—multimodal, digital, and otherwise—play in such negotiations? In the first study we used in step 2, Author 1 examined the work of “second-chance” secondary-level male students of color working towards their High School Equivalency diplomas in a large urban center in the northeast. Data include interviews, student writing, and field notes; structural and thematic analysis (Gee, 2014; Riessman, 2008) focused on the ways in which the young men took up, challenged, and negotiated dominant discourses on who they were and who they might become. In the second study, Author 2 engaged elementary students in video production at a Spanish-English dual language immersion urban school. Data include 30 autobiographical videos made by 8-10 year olds on iPads; student writing; pre- and post-video interviews; and field notes. Analysis began with the construction of multimodal transcripts for each video (Flewitt et al., 2009), after which the transcripts were analyzed for specific and schematic features related to students’ identity work. After we applied our skeleton framework to the analyzed data from these two studies, we moved on to step three, revision of the framework.
In step three, we revised the framework to incorporate examples from our individual projects, making it a more robust tool for examining youths’ identity work in a variety of settings. While careful not to overstate the possibilities of agentive re-positionings, our analysis documents children and youths’ efforts to locate themselves within desired discourses—be they as transnational children or as college-bound learners capable of engaging scholarship—as they work to achieve individual goals. These identity enactments are, we argue, agentive, though not always successful in terms of the actor’s goals (as understood through our analyses). Educators and researchers who work with marginalized learners will benefit from an accessible, specific framework that details connections between literacy, agency, and identity enactments. Ultimately, we offer a path forward for continuing research in literacy-and-identity studies.

Authors

• Noah Asher Golden, Chapman University

• Jessica Zacher Pandya, California State University - Long Beach