Transnational Latina teens use media as key cultural resources to manage their passage to womanhood while building identities as U.S. citizens. This article examines the challenges of media literacy within the transnational context of working-class Latinas. It presents findings of an action-research project with 12 Latina teens, which was grounded on Freire’s (1999) pedagogy and Willis’s (1981) insights about class culture. The study found that the hybridity of the teens’ media practices came not only from the mainstream and the Latino and Latina media but also from the Black media. The article suggests that media education can further English and Spanish literacy and that curriculum design must take into account that immigrant teens act as cultural brokers for their parents.
As universities create service-learning programs, educators are experimenting with pedagogical approaches that enhance learning outcomes while benefiting communities. We present a qualitative case study of a radiobased, service-learning program, grounded in a Freirean foundation and aimed at developing the cultural competence and sense of citizenship of undergraduate students while empowering working-class high school Latino/a students. Undergraduate students benefited the most from the program; they enhanced their cultural competence skills, awareness of social issues, and sense of civic responsibility. Latino/a high school students who stayed in the program for at least a year developed self-confidence, self-esteem, and a sense of self-efficacy.
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