Creativity is often explored from a Western-dominant perspective. This means that cultures that do not follow dominant culture or Western principles, such as non-Western or minority ethnic cultures, are often misjudged in creativity research and assessment. Additionally, scholarship that does address Asian creativity does so in a way that presents Asian culture as monolithic. This article presents an example of how creativity is defined, recognized, and enacted in four interactive Uyghur language websites that were active between 2014 and 2016. These Uyghur language websites present an interesting example of how an Asian, ethnolinguistic minority culture expresses creativity and innovation while under controlling and conforming pressures of the dominant culture (in this case the Chinese government). Findings suggest that Uyghurs define their creative identity as one that promotes love, joy, and hope for their community, overcomes adversity, and comes from a heritage of scholars and writers. They recognize creativity that aids in community cultural preservation, is selfless, and is the result of hard work. As a result of their controlled status, online Uyghurs articulate that their creativity is limited by the majority culture and emphatically express how their cultural creativity is unique.
Offering students the opportunity to use digital tools to research critical issues in their lives can support their agency.I lost a lotta family members to gun violence, and that was my topic, so it gave me a chance to really realize it's real. (Quincy, a 13-year-old African American student; all names are pseudonyms) Q uincy stated this about an inquiry project about a problem, gun violence, that he wanted to investigate. In this article, we present a case study of his development of a research project that focused on this issue, which impacts his community. We analyzed his project as part of a larger exploratory qualitative study of the growth of students' digital and information skills. The research question that we address here is, How did one urban youth demonstrate agency in the creation of a multimodal project and in his use of technology to address and present solutions to a specific problem in his community?Multimodal texts are "composed of combinations of words, images, and other modalities" (Gee, 2011, p. 194). A critical discourse analysis of Quincy's multimodal PowerPoint project gave us an in-depth look at what he learned about gun violence, the information he chose to present, and how he used technology to convey a compelling message about stopping gun violence in his community. A primary finding from this case study is how the teacher fostered agency for Quincy by balancing teacher guidance and student choice over specific aspects of the project.Research comparing students of color in underserved communities against white middle class students has often used a deficit lens to examine disparities (e.g., achievement gap; Johnson, 2017;Nasir & Hand, 2006). Howard (2013) stated that much of the literature from social science fields, the media, the press, and other academic work "has fallen short in providing a more holistic and affirming account of Black males in schools" (p. 57), and he called for a disruption in educational research by presenting counternarratives that highlight the achievements and successes of students of color. Johnson (2017) argued for a shift in how the field views success to encompass the complex ways in which African American youths in particular experience education. The growing number of studies that have demonstrated how urban youths use and reappropriate technology to create meaningful work represents such a counternarrative
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