Picturing Ethnic Studies: Photovoice and Youth Literacies of Social Action

Abstract

Chicanx students use photovoice to articulate the importance of their high school ethnic studies course.

“See, Click, Fix”: Civic Interrogation and Digital Tools in a Ninth-Grade Ethnic Studies Course

“…This article extends the bodies of literature that point to the potential of digital media tools to amplify civic participation (Kahne & Bowyer, 2019;Mirra & Garcia, 2017) as well as the uptake of technology and digital literacies in Ethnic Studies classrooms (de los Ríos, 2017Ríos, , 2018.…”

Toward aCorridistaConsciousness: Learning From One Transnational Youth's Critical Reading, Writing, and Performance of Mexican Corridos

“…Ethnic studies courses encompass and amplify fundamental sociocultural and sociopolitical experiences, where students are encouraged to make sense of their intersectional lives on both personal and structural levels. As secondary ethnic studies courses continue to proliferate with the support of California Assembly Bill 2016, a recently passed legislation that sanctions ethnic studies courses throughout California's school districts, this research contributes to the scant but necessary scholarship about the decolonial possibilities of literacy activity within these classrooms (de los Ríos, 2017a(de los Ríos, , 2017b.…”

“…Critics have argued that ethnic studies courses, including its subdisciplines such as Chicanx/Latinx Studies courses, promote racial separatism and do not equip students with academic literacy skills (Martinez, 2012;Planas, 2012). However, growing research has demonstrated that ethnic studies courses foster robust academic literacy development and empowered transnational youth identity development (de los Ríos, 2013(de los Ríos, , 2016(de los Ríos, , 2017b. Moreover, as increasing antiimmigrant rhetoric rises under the current presidential administration, the grassroots movement to expand secondary ethnic studies courses is gaining momentum in some of the most racially and linguistically diverse California school districts (Buenavista, 2016).…”

“…Skerrett (2015) noted that although studies examining transnational youths' literacy practices remain scant, they are growing (Bartlett, 2007;de la Piedra & Araujo, 2012;Jiménez, Smith, & Teague, 2009;Kim, 2016). Studies that explored transnational U.S.-Mexican youths make up a significant portion of the scholarship and focused primarily on border youths' popular culture practices and their concomitant multilingual and multimodal literacies (de la Piedra, 2010; de los Ríos, 2017a;Rubinstein-Ávila, 2007;Skerrett, 2012). As studies continue to emerge, there remains limited knowledge in practical approaches to literacy education that are receptive and inclusive to the skill sets and literacies that transnational youths, like Joaquín, bring with them to school (de la Piedra, 2010;Sánchez, 2007;Skerrett, 2015).…”

“…Accordingly, transnational youths' everyday literacies are ongoing assemblages of knowledge, ideology, and specific cultural practices replete with potential academic promise (Jiménez et al, 2015). Whereas the literature has noted that border youths' multiliterate and multilingual practices are rarely valued in dominant curricula (de la Piedra, 2010), Joaquín's case builds on the emerging studies that have documented the collective force of translanguaging and transnational practices when leveraged in secondary classroom contexts (de los Ríos, 2017a;Stewart, 2014). To further develop a conceptual frame for examining such cognitive abilities and movements across physical and metaphorical borders, I turn to recent studies of border thinking with border youths.…”