Literacy and capital in immigrant youths' online networks across countries

Communication technologies are playing an increasingly prominent role in facilitating immigrants' social networks across countries and the transnational positioning of immigrant youth in their online language and literacy practices. Drawing from a comparative case study of the digital literacy practices of immigrant youth of Chinese descent, this paper examines the cross-border social relationships that are fostered between the youth and their peers in their natal country through the use of instant messaging and other online media. Using Pierre Bourdieu's capital and field theory, and the concept of social capital, this paper considers how literacy development in transnational contexts constitutes the production of social and cultural capital. It argues that the youths' online literacy practices need to be understood within the particular social fields in which they are situated and how they allow the youth to navigate and take up position within social fields that cross national boundaries.     

Becoming a youth activist in the internet age: a case study on social media activism and identity development

This paper draws on a case study of one youth activist, and explores connections between social media activism, identity development, and critical education. Justin Rodriguez, a 17-year-old high school student in Newark, New Jersey, leveraged social media and texting as organizing tools and garnered support for a school walkout to protest education budget cuts. Drawing on the Listening Guide interview method and Justin’s narrative of his experiences, the study explores the question: Does social media activism have implications for how we understand the development of youth activist identities? The findings suggest Justin’s development as a youth activist was mediated, not produced, by social media activism; and Justin developed as a youth activist through various forms of interaction that included social media and face-to-face relationships. The paper also explores the supports provided by adult mentors that were important in Justin’s development as an activist, including education for critical consciousness and opportunities for Justin to participate in civic venues.     

Memes and symbolic violence: #proudboys and the use of memes for propaganda and the construction of collective identity

ABSTRACT

As a social media platform, Instagram has a strong influence on youth culture, identity, and perceptions of the world, with the application serving not only for youth to follow accounts that are aspirational but also for entertainment and identity building through memes. Meme accounts that are explicitly conservative and that espouse white supremacist, hateful ideology and subsequently, identity, are incredibly prevalent. Media serve as powerful institutions for the socialization of youth, and content on the platform reveals that memes are serving as building blocks of ideological meaning. This study conducted a discourse analysis of the memes and content circulated by the alt-right affiliate movement the ‘Proud Boys,’ which is being sold to young men as a fraternity-like organization to celebrate ‘Western ideals’. Proud Boys operate on an ideology that consists of both symbolic and physical violence, and the popularity of these groups is growing. Using Bourdieu’s work on language as a framework, this article is an exploration to their recruitment and world-building practices on Instagram using memes and will be necessary to understand the movement, and to gain further insight into how memes are being used as propaganda.     

Situating secondary schooling in the transnational social field: contestation and conflict in Greater Toronto Area classrooms

This article situates secondary schooling within the evolving transnational social field. Drawing on 43 interviews with teachers and former students with transnational connections in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada, I examine how transnational practices and dispositions fit within existing curricular and pedagogical frameworks in secondary schools. It is suggested that the ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of belonging’ for transnational students are in conflict with the teachers’ views on how students ought to act and feel within classroom settings. When transnational secondary students travel to their sending societies for ongoing periods, the data reveal disconnections at school that threaten the dominant classroom norms. When there is sustained direct contact with multiple countries, including both travel and new modes of communication, this may create knowledge and vivid experiences for transnational youth who are ‘betwixt and between’, but also leads to concerns by teachers about a ‘strategic’ use of Toronto-area schools and fears about ‘dual loyalties’. Finally, many of the transnational youth find their teachers’ assumptions of schooling superiority in the Global North to be sorely misdirected, and perhaps even harmful. These discordances highlight the existence of competing systems of capital within GTA classrooms.     

Newcomer refugee and immigrant youth negotiate transnational civic learning and participation in school

This article analyses the perspectives and experiences of refugee and immigrant secondary school students in the USA who are from the Democratic Republic of Congo to examine the interplay between identity and civic education, and broader socio-political discourses around immigration and inclusion. Data are drawn from a 2-year qualitative study that took place between 2016 and 2018, and included interviews, field notes from classroom observations and recordings of classroom discourse in high school civics classes. Findings are analysed through anthropological framings of citizenship and provide important insight into how marginalisation in one context is experienced in another—how refugee and immigrant youth’s socially conscious identities in resettlement contexts can be borne out of personal and familial histories that transcend geographical borders. In so doing, it showcases how civic learning can involve a dialogic process of self-representation and representation of group memberships. This research emphasises these youth’s inherent agency and resistance to single-story narratives about their lives. It concludes with implications for teachers and learners on incorporating active, critical and participatory transnational citizenship education into the classroom.     

‘Do they really do that in Korea?’: multicultural learning through Hallyu media

ABSTRACT

As new media spaces expand opportunities for engagement with geographically distant people and places, this article examines how communication practices within such spaces may construct cultural differences. The study’s data source was a website on which people posted, watched, and discussed Asian dramas. Qualitative data included writing, visual images, and interactions created within the site’s Korean dramas forum. Analyses of user-generated discussions revealed discourses about Korean distinctiveness. The forum functions as a virtual multicultural learning community where youth who lived outside of Korea imagined and negotiated an understanding of Korean culture. As these youth participated in Hallyu (the Korean Wave) through their engagements with its media, their discourses on Korean distinctiveness reinscribe Koreans as a global Other. Implications of this study include ways that online transnational engagements with Korean dramas in particular, and Hallyu media in general, shape current learning about Korea, as well as the possibilities and challenges of new media affordances for Internet-mediated multicultural learning.     

A North Korean Defector’s Journey Through the Identity-Transformation Process

The current study examined how a North Korean defector attending a college in South Korea transformed her identity while learning English. This study was grounded in the notion of second language learning as a struggle of a socially constituted being in which the language learner constantly structures and restructures his or her social identity. Data were collected through journals and interviews with the defector. Data analysis revealed that the North Korean defector experienced an identity transformation: from being a resisting North Korean who wanted to maintain her North Korean identity by consciously ignoring English education to being a struggling English learner who eventually yielded to the need for English learning; then an active learner who found English learning valuable and meaningful; and finally, a visionary who aimed to care about those in need, particularly English learning needs. During the identity transformation process, the defector constantly negotiated her identities in response to multiple social factors. Based on these findings, the present study offers pedagogical suggestions for English education for North Korean defectors.     

The purpose of travel in the cultivation practices of differently positioned parental groups in Israel

ABSTRACT

Travel has become ubiquitous for most social groups as holidaying abroad has become ever cheaper and ecumene. This paper considers how travel can be understood as part of family practices around children’s educations and futures. Drawing on Kaufmann’s concept of motility, we examine how spatial mobility might become a form of cultural capital to reproduce privilege or facilitate social mobility. We generated data on family spatial mobility during the act of international air travel itself, interviewing 22 participants. We argue that spatial mobility and its link to social mobility is differently conceived of by our working, middle, and global middle class families, but that all three seek to use travel overtly as a form of cultivation for their children. This leads us to suggest that international travel may illuminate new ways that social class differentiations and lines of striation are being forged through movements across transnational spaces, offering new insights for education professionals and scholars.     

How social media discourses organize communication online: a multi-level discursive analysis of tensions and contradictions in teens’ online experiences

Media reports frequently frame youth as foolish but also uniquely vulnerable when it comes to social media. However, adult framings of teen online activities and teens’ reported experiences regularly differ due to the privileging of adult concerns. In this paper, we take a youth-centered approach to teen online activities exploring the constitutive processes of social media and the micro-, meso-, and macro-level discourses associated with youth social media use. Through in-depth interviews with 55 culturally and socio-economically diverse young people, we examine the contradictions and tensions that organize teens’ experiences online, as well as the discursive resources they draw on to navigate online life. Our research showcases a multi-level discursive analysis that enables scholars to see how discourses intertwine to organize communication online, foregrounding theoretical implications about how young people resist and reify certain discourses about social media, as well as how identity and imagined audiences are maintained online.     

Alternate Reality Games as an Informal Learning Tool for Generating STEM Engagement among Underrepresented Youth: a Qualitative Evaluation of the Source

This project developed and studied The Source, an alternate reality game (ARG) designed to foster interest and knowledge related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) among youth from populations underrepresented in STEM fields. ARGs are multiplayer games that engage participants across several media such as shared websites, social media, personal communications, and real-world settings to complete activities and collaborate with team members. The Source was a five-week summer program with 144 participants from Chicago aged 13 to 18 years. The Source incorporated six socio-contextual factors derived from three frameworks: Chang’s (ERIC Digest, 2002) recommendations for engaging underrepresented populations in STEM careers, Lave and Wenger’s (Cambridge University Press, 1991) situated learning model, and Barron’s (Human Development, 49(4); 193-224, 2006) learning ecology perspective. These factors aligned with the program’s aims of promoting (1) social community and peer support, (2) collaboration and teamwork, (3) real-world relevance and investigative learning, (4) mentoring and exposure to STEM professionals, (5) hands-on activities to foster transferable skill building, and (6) interface with technology. This paper presents results from 10 focus groups and 10 individual interviews conducted with a subset of the 144 youth participants who completed the game. It describes how these six factors were realized through The Source and uses them as a lens for considering how The Source functioned pedagogically. Qualitative findings describe youth’s perception of The Source’s potential influence on STEM interest, engagement, and identity formation. Despite limitations, study results indicate that underrepresented youth can engage in an immersive, narrative, and game-based experience as a potential mechanism for piquing and developing STEM interest and skills, particularly among underrepresented youth.     

Educational policies and social inequality in well-being among young adults

Inequalities in health and well-being are important contemporary public health issues. This article is the first to investigate the institutional causes of inequality in well-being among youth in a comparative perspective. Data from the European Social Survey are used to analyse how educational policies moderate the association between social background and well-being. Multilevel techniques are used to investigate cross-level interactions between social background and educational policies on life satisfaction. Four indicators of inclusive educational policies are analysed: age of tracking, costs of education, enrolment rates, and second-chance opportunities in the educational system. The results show that educational policies indeed moderate the association between social background and well-being: inequalities as measured by the father’s social class are smaller in countries where educational policies are more inclusive. Moreover, the analysis shows that the moderating impact of education policies is mediated by individual-level education, activity status, and income.     

Positioning young refugees in Australia: media discourse and social exclusion

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article was to examine how media attention affects the social exclusion of young refugees negotiating their way towards settlement in Australia. Emerging stereotypes and prejudices against young male refugees require new ways of understanding the impact of global, national and local issues on their social exclusion. The article brings together the impact of (a) the global politicisation and backlash against refugees, (b) Australians negative perception of refugees and (c) the increased reporting of young African-Australian and Pasifika-Australians as the perpetrators of youth violence. The article recognises the overlapping dimensions of social exclusion for young refugees and considers their ‘spatial’, ‘relational’ and ‘socio-political’ exclusion. The examination of media reporting of a landmark legal case of discrimination and racial profiling reveals a discourse of media attention that has perpetuated the social exclusion of a group of young African-Australian refugees living on a Melbourne public housing estate. The sensationalist and prejudicial media connection of the landmark legal case, youth violence and young African-Australians living on the Flemington Estate demonstrates the challenges young male refugees face in negotiating their settlement in Australia. This article makes a contribution to understanding the multi-dimensional nature of youth exclusion in contemporary times.     

Seeking a Mexicana/Mestiza Critical Feminist Ethic of Care: Diana’s Revolución of Body and Being

This Chicana Critical Feminist Testimonio reveals a Mexican/Mexican-American Ethic of Care and Testimonios of struggle and survival informing curriculum and pedagogy of one Mexican/Mexican-American female educator of predominantly Mexican/Mexican-American students. This work is part of a larger ethnographic study conducted through multiple methods. Findings here reveal Diana’s Ethic of Care, a (re)framing of social justice revolution/Revolución at the intersection of race, class, gender, language, and immigration status. As Diana (re)constructs and (re)claims her Mexican/Mexican-American identity, she likewise endeavors toward her students’ dignity and academic access. Findings have curricular, pedagogical implications for all educators serving marginalized youth and youth of color.     

Time to confront Willis’s lads with a ballet class? A case study of educational orthodoxy and white working‐class boys

This is a retrospective study tracing the longer term effects on identity and aspiration of white working‐class boys from an area of high social deprivation. The boys were members of an acclaimed boys’ dance company and have been retrospectively interviewed as young men in their twenties. Documentary and film material dating from the time they were 14 year olds and the film Billy Elliot were used in the interviews. A media discourse driven by a view of boys ‘in crisis’ that is blind to social class and the difficulties faced by some girls was uncovered. This is found to pervade the entire Billy Elliot discourse, which focused on the sensation of a boy performing ballet rather than on the class background and historical context of the miners’ dispute. The paper questions the discourse of laddishness and the social identity that is attached to the term ‘lad’.     

Complicating Culture and Difference: Situating Asian American Youth Identities in Lisa Yee’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Millicent Min,Girl Genius</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time</Emphasis>

This review situates how culture, difference, and identity are discursively constructed in Millicent Min, Girl Genius and Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, two award-winning books written by critically acclaimed Asian American author Lisa Yee. Using contextual literacy approaches, the characters, cultural motifs, and physical settings in these texts are deconstructed to explore the nuances of Asian American youth identities that intersect along the lines of class, gender, and race. This review ends by offering teaching strategies for explicating Asian American young adult literature to critically investigate the representations of Asian American counter-narratives, experiences, and youth cultures. Rachel Endo is a Ph.D. Candidate in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her current research interests are comparative multicultural education, immigrant/refugee experiences in post-1965 contexts, teacher education, and transnational studies of Asian America.     

Relationship quality in higher education marketing: the role of social media engagement

The landscape in consumer marketing is changing due to the rise in popularity of social media. This shift has also affected how higher education institutions build relationships with their stakeholders. This study explores how social media engagement impacts relationship quality between the university and one of its key stakeholder groups, students. Data were collected via an online survey and analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U test, regression and the Kruskal–Wallis test. Results indicated a positive association between students following a university via social media and the perception of having a high-quality relationship with their university, and that following a university on multiple social media sites leads to an even higher perception of relationship quality. The results provide important and timely implications for both universities and higher education marketers. Our findings suggest that higher education marketers should invest resources in social media communications to form high-quality relationships with their stakeholders.     

A social semiotic mapping of voice in youth media: the pitch in youth video production†

An ethics of youth media production is the interplay of identities, media literacy, and modality that shape the environment within which young people produce media, yet how ‘voice’ is fostered and/or constrained in these environments could still be explored more fully. This paper stems from a larger qualitative study of how youth created films about their lives and communities in four non-school spaces that strove to give voice to underrepresented youth across the USA. This detailed semiotic analysis illustrates the nuances in the discussion between young people and youth media arts educators in two of these organizations during the pitch, the key moment in the filmmaking process in which the youth presented their ideas for their videos for adult approval before they moved on to the next stages, for example, filming. This analysis illustrates how young people negotiated their voice, tracing the negotiation and the inherent power dynamics that occurred.     

Congregating to create for social change: urban youth media production and sense of community

This case study explored how adolescents were empowered through afterschool media production activities and, in the process, re-imagined themselves as active and engaged citizens within their community. Through analyzing interviews, participant observations, and media artifacts of 14 participants (aged 15–19) over a period of 18 months, three main themes emerged from the triangulation of data: (1) sociocultural capital through group ownership; (2) safe space for creative expression; and (3) developing a sense of community with diverse voices. These young people exercised their collective voice toward pro-social actions by writing and producing their stories and showcasing their works at community screenings. They hoped that their videos would promote individual and community transformations. Building on youth development, community psychology, and media literacy frameworks, this article discusses educational implications like advocating for the power of youth media production to bridge participants personal and private artistry to public and political statements.     

Critical literacy,self-protection and delinquency: the challenges of participatory media for youths at-risk

While pedagogy is predominantly viewed from the perspective of classroom instruction, educators worldwide invariably play a critical pastoral role of shaping the personal development of their students and nurturing in them life skills. With the avid use of participatory media by young people in peer interaction, educators need to be aware of the attendant risks and opportunities so that they may offer counsel and render appropriate advice. To this end, through interviews with 36 Singaporean male juvenile delinquents and youths-at-risk, this study explores how these youths utilise participatory media in their peer interaction. The findings indicate that for this vulnerable youth population, participatory media such as social networking sites can become a platform through which they are unwittingly drawn into criminal behaviour and post-rehabilitation, participatory media may offer an insidious route to recidivism. Participatory media complicates peer interaction by presenting risk factors such as network transparency, negative peer modelling, network seepage and network persistence, all of which have implications for these youths sliding further into delinquency and criminal activity. This article concludes with recommendations on the strategies which youths-at-risk can employ to avoid the risks of participatory media.     

Mexican immigrant transnational social capital and class transformation: examining the role of peer mediation in insurgent science

In this article, I return to the interactions of Augusto and his teacher in an “English Learner Science” classroom in a demographically-transitioning US Midwest community (Richardson Bruna and Vann in Cult Stud Sci Educ 2:19–59, 2007) and further engage a class-first perspective to achieve two main conceptual objectives. First, I examine Augusto’s science education experience as a way of understanding processes Rouse (Towards a transnational perspective on migration: Race, class, ethnicity, and nationalism reconsidered. The New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 1992) refers to as “the disciplinary production of class-specific subjects” (p. 31). Coming from a subsistence farming community in rural Mexico to an industrialized meatpacking community in semi-rural Iowa, I describe how Augusto undergoes a change in his class identity (experiences a Class Transformation) that is not just reflected but, in fact, produced in his science class. Second, I examine the work Augusto does to resist these processes of disciplinary production as he reshapes his teacher’s instruction (promotes a class transformation) through specific transnational social capital he leverages as peer mediation. My overall goals in the article are to demonstrate the immediate relevance of a socio-historical, situated perspective to science teaching and learning and to outline domains of action for an insurgent, class-cognizant, science education practice informed by transnational social capital, like Augusto’s.