Disrupting Educational Inequalities Through Youth Digital Activism

Abstract

This article reviews scholarship on youth and young adult activism in digital spaces, as young users of participatory media sites are engaging in political, civic, social, or cultural action and advocacy online to create social change. The authors argue that youth’s digital activism serves as a central mechanism to disrupt inequality, and that education research should focus on these youth practices, particularly by young people from marginalized communities or identities, in order to provide important counter-narratives to predominant stories circulating about “at-risk”or disaffected youth. The article examines young people’s use of online tools for organizing toward social change across three lines of inquiry—young people’s cultural and political uses of participatory tools and spaces online, new forms of youth civic engagement and activism, and adult-supported programs and spaces facilitating youth activism. In centering the review on youth digital activism, the authors suggest that education researchers can learn from youth themselves about how to disrupt educational inequalities, resulting in a more humanizing stance for education research that takes into fuller account the human potential of all youth, beyond school walls.

Contexts of Digital Socialization: Studying Adolescents' Interactions on Social Network Sites

“…By calling into question the capacity of teens to be witnesses, expert or otherwise, to their own experiences, Zizek recalls deficit-oriented characterizations of adolescents that position them as unformed and uninformed [see Lesko, 2012]. Much of my scholarship has been aimed at directly challenging such percep-tions in educational research, arguing that such a stance serves to replicate educational inequalities [see Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2017]. While objective hermeneutics certainly positions the analyst as the primary arbiter of meaning through textual interpretation, Zizek's dismissal of more contextual, ethnographic methodologies that take seriously participants' perspectives seems short sighted at best.…”

Reframing Activism as Leadership

“…Political and Social Activism. Some of the most common (noticeable) forms of political and social activism have been implemented by marginalized groups to address racial inequalities (Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2017;Wilson & Johnson, 2015). Black communities, specifically, have practiced activism to gain access to equal socioeconomic opportunities.…”

Transforming School Hallways Through Critical Inquiry: Multimodal Literacies for Civic Engagement

“…Transforming School Hallways Through Critical Inquiry: Multimodal Literacies for Civic Engagement Tiffany DeJaynes, Christopher Curmi-Hall Youth researchers used photography, collage, and videography to transform their school hallways into a space for critical conversations about race and gender. Y oung people use multimodal resources such as video-and photo-editing tools and social media (e.g., Twitter, Instagram) in myriad ways to participate in civic life (Mirra & Garcia, 2017;Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2017). Given the ubiquity of digital tools for composing and circulating multimodal narratives, youths actively take up these resources to resist dehumanizing narratives and push the boundaries of civic engagement, online and offline.…”

“…Young people use multimodal resources such as video‐ and photo‐editing tools and social media (e.g., Twitter, Instagram) in myriad ways to participate in civic life (Mirra & Garcia, ; Stornaiuolo & Thomas, ). Given the ubiquity of digital tools for composing and circulating multimodal narratives, youths actively take up these resources to resist dehumanizing narratives and push the boundaries of civic engagement, online and offline.…”