Bring It! Exploring How Youth's Mediascapes Shape Their Composition Practices

• In Event: 56.082 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: 56.082-2 - Diverse Research, Participation, and Voices in Digital Media and Learning

Abstract

Schools are trying to make pedagogical shifts to be more connected to youth’s media and technology saturated lives. In this ethnographic account, I explore how a student-led dance team created opportunities for youth to engage their mediascapes (or the cultural and media influences that shape and inform their lifeworlds) to make, compose and collaborate with their peers thus allowing them to find new ways to demonstrate knowledge and expertise within the institutional boundaries of school. In particular I look at how dancers’ knowledge of and affinities for popular music, television shows as well as other cultural forms shaped their collaborative compositions. Thus this research offers that valuing youth’s mediascapes gives students new pathways into learning, collaboration and, community.

Author

• Veena Vasudevan, American Museum of Natural History