I’m pleased to announce that I am co-editing a special issue of Learning Media and Technology with Ernest Morrell. The theme for our issue is “City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media.” You can read the full CFP here and I will also paste it below. If you are a researcher, teacher, or student involved in work that relates to the theme described, please consider submitting an abstract for consideration by September 30th.
Learning, Media and Technology
Call for papers – special issue
Issue theme: City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media
Learning, Media and Technology is acknowledged as one of the learning academic journals in the fields of educational technology and educational media.
Proposals are invited for papers for a special issue of the journal on the theme“City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media”. The special issue will be edited by Antero Garcia and Ernest Morrell.
We are currently soliciting abstracts for proposed papers for the special issue. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and be accompanied by up to six keywords.
- Deadline for submission of abstract: 30th September 2011
- Successful authors informed: 10th October 2011
- Deadline for submission of full papers: 31st January 2012
Full papers are expected to be between 4,000 and 6,000 words (please refer to the journal website for full ‘instructions for authors’). All papers will be subject to the usual blind reviewing and refereeing processes.
Please send abstracts and keywords to the guest editors by 30th September 2011:
- anterobot@gmail.com
- ernestmorrell@gmail.com
FURTHER DETAILS OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
In 1950, approximately 29% of the world’s population was classified as urban. According to the 2007 revision of the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects, 70% of the world’s population will be classified as urban by 2050 and most of the people who will inhabit urban centres globally will be economically disadvantaged. We also know that school systems in cities around the world are challenged to provide socially and culturally meaningful education to increasingly diverse populations and, because of their inability to meet these challenges, many city youth do not receive the formal education they need to participate meaningfully in the world of work or civil society in the 21st century.
At the same time, we see that city youth have increasing access to technology and many scholars have shown that youth are engaging technology outside of school in increasingly sophisticated ways. Because of this, technology is being called upon as an antidote to education inequity globally. These tools are used not only to engage students in meaningful learning experiences, but also to shape ways people participate and interact with the world. However, while there is burgeoning research around the role that participatory media play in improving learning, educators are identifying challenges toward implementation. Specifically, “research on teaching in urban schools suggests that teachers’ limited skills and limiting beliefs about their students lead to a steady diet of low-level material coupled with unstimulating, roteoriented teaching”.
When applied to historically marginalized communities, participatory media acts as a powerful tool for amplification of voice and as a means to personalize content and assessments for the specific needs of marginalized youth. Part of the challenge that educators face is in looking at the ways youth come together and communicate to refine/establish new technologies. As we better understand how culture happens among young people, an understanding of how to develop new technologies emerges.
This special issue explores ways that technology-based opportunities present strategies for closing a global literacy gap based on race and class. Specifically, this issue focuses on pedagogy and participatory media:
- How are city youth demonstrating the potential of participatory media to intentionally develop a public pedagogy?
- How are participatory media reshaping social thought and action?
- How do educators leverage media in critical literacy development? What are examples of successful attempts of this form of pedagogy?
- Are there ministries and departments of education or government agencies that are getting it right with respect to policies that promote the pedagogy of participatory media?
- What are the risks of adopting participatory media tools developed for capitalism and consumerism? How are educators engaging youth in these topics?
The guest editors of this issue have extensive experience as teachers, teacher educators, and researchers working with youth in the U.S. This issue requests submissions from a wide range of agents from around the world within the field of education: in addition to researchers, teachers, students, and combinations of collaborators across these audiences are encouraged to share their work.