"See, Click, Fix": Civic Interrogation and Digital Tools in a Ninth-Grade Ethnic Studies Classroom

• In Event: 31.040 - Critical Ethnic Studies Praxis in an Age of Expansion

Abstract

Drawing from the theoretical contributions of ethnic studies, activist new media, and critical digital literacies, this paper explores the nature of a curricular unit that asked ninth grade students to critically consider how their daily environment impacts their health and well-being. Using a combination of critical ethnographic (Foley, & Valenzuela, 2000) and practitioner inquiry methods (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009), the authors highlight an ethnic studies teacher’s innovative and community-based pedagogy that honed students’ critical digital literacies (de los Ríos, López, & Morrell, 2015) through their engagement with the digital media app “See, Click, Fix”. Findings detail, from students’ perspectives, their experiences with the unit and the ways in which the unit helped them resist deficit-oriented ideologies and as a conduit for critical civic interrogation and literacies. This study adds to the growing bodies of literature examining secondary ethnic studies curricula and pedagogy that acknowledge the changing digital technologies at young people’s disposal and the ways in which youth take up such tools in critical and innovative ways inside of classrooms.

Author

• Cati V. de los Rios, University of California - Davis