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Reading School: Critical Literacies of the Youth Equity Agents
Author(s) -
Hendrix-Soto Aimee
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of adolescent and adult literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1936-2706
pISSN - 1081-3004
DOI - 10.1002/jaal.1153
Subject(s) - sociology , critical literacy , participatory action research , action research , pedagogy , injustice , equity (law) , ethnography , literacy , citizen journalism , critical pedagogy , critical theory , youth studies , gender studies , psychology , political science , social psychology , anthropology , law
In this article, I focus on the critical literacies of Black and Latinx youth participating in a youth participatory action research project, as well as the pedagogies that engaged those literacies. Critical ethnographic study of the Youth Equity Agents’ literacy practices revealed that they enacted a practice of reading school, wherein they investigated and acted on racial injustices in their local school worlds. Although youth had clearly been investigating injustice as a part of their daily navigations of urban schooling, this practice was engaged and extended in the youth participatory action research project. A pedagogical approach that positioned youth as knowledge producers and centered their social interests facilitated this, as did specific teaching practices such as engaging social theory and exploring the material environments of school. Youth applied this learning to produce digital photo counternarratives with the potential to transform inequity in schooling.