Adolescents’ Digital Literacies in Flux: Intersections of Voice, Empowerment, and Practices

Abstract

This article features a collaborative autoethnographic examination of three adolescent-researchers' digital literacies. The participatory design punctuates the role of the adolescent-researchers as they explored their meaning-making practices. Such collaborative research, which included three adolescents and their parents, not only resurfaces parent-inquiry, but also brings the adolescentresearcher voice to the forefront of literacy research. Two research questions guided the investigation: (a) What do adolescent-researchers tell us about their digital and nondigital literacy practices? and (b) In what ways do adolescent-researchers' retrospective examinations of their own practices reveal their perspectives of these practices and the power (and power struggles) that underlie them? The research team engaged in two rounds of coding, embracing first dramaturgical coding and then versus coding. Results suggested that Perspective/Attitude was the most prevalent attribute in the adolescent-researchers' discourse. Moreover, versus coding revealed strong relationships between "then versus now." Overall, the voices of the adolescent-researchers offer ongoing authenticity to discussions of their practices, creating continued opportunities to rethink the implications and applications of digital and nondigital practices in adolescents' lives.

Pandemic meaning making: messing toward motet

“…Child-parent research engages families in a collaborative autoethnographic study (Abrams et al, 2019;Abrams et al, 2020;Schaefer et al, 2020) in which the child is a co-researcher, not the subject, of the investigation. A critical dialectical pluralist (CDP) approach (Onwuegbuzie and Frels, 2013;Onwuegbuzie et al, 2014) conceptually grounds this collaborative autoethnographic, child-parent research because, in such a line of inquiry, youth participation exists at all phases, from a study's design through its dissemination and presentation.…”

“…In CDP, there is a concerted, deliberate effort to acknowledge and flatten hierarchies: "The researcher assumes a research-facilitator role that empowers the participant(s) to assume the role of participant-researcher(s), who, in turn, either present/ perform the findings themselves or co/present/co-perform the findings with the researchfacilitator(s)" (Onwuegbuzie et al, 2014, p. 6). With a similar ethical imperative, child-parent research exists on a continuum that acknowledges shifts in ways children and their parents engage in co-research, especially because children are the more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978) of their understandings and parents are the more knowledgeable other of empirical research and writing (Abrams et al, 2019;Abrams et al, 2020;Schaefer et al, 2020). Furthermore, we echo Murray's (2016) contention that youth can engage in research behaviors, namely, "exploration, finding solutions, conceptualisation and basing decisions on evidence" (p. 711), and we underscore the ethical and methodological importance of participatory research wherein children are the mouthpiece of their discoveries.…”

Reimagining Child-Parent Research

“…Given the literature supporting youth research behavior (cf. Chabot et al, 2012;Christensen & Prout, 2002;Landsdown, 2010;Mason & Bolzon, 2010;Murray, 2016), coupled with our own research (Abrams, Schaefer, & Ness, 2019;, we continued to flesh out how we conceptualized child-parent research wherein the parent also is a researcher. We soon realized that the role of the child-as-researcher is a continuum (Figure 1.2).…”

“…Likewise, a study might begin with adults structuring the examination and the children involved in the data collection. As time passes and the children become more familiar with the research, their degree of partnership increases, and they might begin to lead the next steps of the investigation or presentation of data (Abrams, Schaefer, & Ness, 2019). The continuum acknowledges the dynamic nature of research and the shifts in involvement and partnership that can occur at any point during the study.…”

“…Readers hear directly from the child-researchers. This is not to discredit a combined approach, which underscores a partnership across all facets of the research process (Abrams, Schaefer, & Ness, 2019). We challenge the field to contemplate a variety of permutations of partnership in writing, considering what these musings might look like in a research article where both child and parent muse, reflect, ruminate and investigate either in tandem or in a combined fashion.…”