The myth of sharing publicly as 21st century literacy: A case study of a Bangladeshi–American girl’s mobile literacy practices

Abstract

Purpose

This paper highlights the fluidity with which youth make decisions about engaging with digital technologies including online social media. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities that literacy curriculum that centers digital technologies can have for students from immigrant communities through tracing the case of a Bangladeshi–American girl named Sabina.

Design/methodology/approach

Grounded in a transliteracies frame, this qualitative case study explores the digital literacy practices of youth in an urban public secondary school in the USA. Data collection included participant observation across various spaces including an eighth grade digital media studies class, school cafeteria and hallways, participants’ homes and online communities. Further data included formal interviews, informal conversations and digital and print artifact collection. Data were analyzed through the lenses of flow and space–time path.

Findings

The findings of this paper highlight how Sabina made space for social networking using digital technologies on her own terms as well as how the ways that she collaborated through the use of digital technologies created opportunities for her to be an active participant in her social worlds across home and school contexts.

Originality/value

Analyzing Sabina’s digital literacy practices across diverse social spaces offers insights for educators to create opportunities for diverse youth to leverage digital technologies to support skills such as collaboration and civic engagement, which have been identified as defining characteristics of twenty-first century literacies. This case points to the imperative for teachers to create connected learning classrooms that offer opportunities for youth to use digital technologies to support their efforts to make change in the world on their own terms.

Citation

Schmier, S. (2019), "The myth of sharing publicly as 21st century literacy: A case study of a Bangladeshi–American girl’s mobile literacy practices", International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 94-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-06-2018-0065