Practicing Democracy Online: The Potential and Perils of Civic Education in the Digital Age

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium offers in-depth analysis of the media landscape created by digital communication technologies and explores the unprecedented opportunities and challenges that this landscape creates for youth civic education and engagement. The papers examine how young people respond to online racial discrimination, how teachers strive to help young people reason about reliability and validity of the digital information sources they encounter, and how cross-site collaboratives of youth, teachers, and researchers are designing curricular opportunities that foster online dialogue about controversial social issues across lines of cultural difference. Presenters will highlight issues of equity and justice in digital composition, dialogue, and action as they consider the possibilities and perils of a multimodal public sphere.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Media, Culture, and Learning

Chair

• Ellen Middaugh, San Jose State University

Papers

• The Perils of Digital Spaces for Black and Latinx Adolescents in Their Own Words - Brendesha M. Tynes, University of Southern California

• Balancing History and Politics: Teaching Civic Online Reasoning in Social Studies Classrooms - Sarah McGrew, University of Maryland; Joel Breakstone, Stanford University; Sam Wineburg, Stanford University

• Designing a New Public Sphere: Learning and Civic Dreaming Through Digital Democratic Dialogue - Nicole Mirra, Rutgers University

• Digital Dialogue and the Boundaries of Online Classroom Discourse - Antero Garcia, Stanford University

Discussant

• Joseph E. Kahne, University of California - Riverside