Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy最新文献

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown measures in many countries have increased young people's engagement with digital media. The digital divide goes beyond just having devices and includes differences in how well young people can use digital technology. In this paper, we shift our attention beyond screen time to the nature of the adolescents' digital media use. Our study looks at two adolescents from different backgrounds to understand how their digital media experiences differ in viewing, play, and reading. We add to the literature on the influence SES has on the ways in which adolescents are using digital media during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. Our study was conducted during the pandemic and participants were selected using convenience stratified sampling and the snowballing method. Our findings show that the adolescents' digital viewing was motivated by the need to be a part of an affinity group and that while the viewing was passive, it served a social function to develop a sense of connectedness with peers. We also found that adolescents from high socioeconomic backgrounds tended to engage in more digital reading compared to their peers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, while the adolescents' digital play was shaped by their socioeconomic realities, they were able to make the most from their circumstances and demonstrated both creativity and savviness. By demonstrating the disparities in digital media experiences between two adolescents from contrastive socioeconomic backgrounds, we shed light on the implications of the digital divide, where both equitable access to digital resources and the development of digital literacies necessary to navigate the digital landscape is currently lacking. We argue for the importance for researchers and policymakers to move beyond acknowledging long-standing concerns and take actionable steps to address these issues.

In this article, we revisit the co-creation of a 45-min film, Gender is Like an Ocean, produced with middle school students in response to Kirstin Cronn-Mills's young adult novel Beautiful Music for Ugly Children. The making of this film brought together collaborative inquiry and arts creation. Drawing on the work of critical literacy educators as well as scholars in queer and trans studies, we trace students' participation in the process of co-creating this film through three critical moments, which map their inquiries into gender identity and representation and our own attempts to learn alongside them.

This case study investigates the reading processes of two bilingual teachers who speak English as a second language and use different first languages—Mandarin Chinese and Korean. The two participants read researcher-selected digital texts in English and in their respective first language, retold the texts, and answered comprehension questions about the texts. Their reading aloud and eye movements were recorded for miscue and eye movement analysis. Using Eye Movement Miscue Analysis, the findings showcase the distinctive characteristics of their first-language and second-language reading processes. The cross-linguistic comparison between bilingual reading processes further shows the bilingual participants' similarities and differences in terms of the use of language systems, eye movements, language variations, and image use. This study supports the understanding of non-Roman alphabetical language speakers' reading process, adds to our understanding of the bilingual reading process, and provides teaching and research implications for bilingual teachers and educators.

Motivational research identifies utility value, or the importance of a learning task to future goals, as central to motivation to learn. This study analyzed survey data (N = 86) collected from adult literacy learners to examine their utility value of writing improvement in grammar and spelling skills, word processing skills, and planning, drafting, and revising skills. Findings revealed that participants had a high utility value of improving writing in all three skill areas and possessed a variety of underlying motivations, including obtaining further education, seeking future employment, and personal reasons. Participants' age, educational attainment, and reading levels showed relationships with utility value of improving grammar and spelling skills, and age showed an additional relationship to utility value of improving word processing skills. This work extends research on motivation in this population and supports the application of expectancy-value theory to both adult motivation and writing motivation.

We present an audience reception study of participant reactions to gender-based violence in Issa López' 2008 film, Casi Divas, chosen for its nuanced depiction of women grappling with several violences. Over three focus groups with 15 adult participants, we used Galtung's conflict theory to explore what participants identified as violence, and how victims should respond to violence in various forms. We find that participants have a narrow definition of violence, seeing it as an individualized act and therefore neglecting to consider its cultural or structural foundations. The participants' responses to violence largely reflected neoliberal values of personal empowerment and choice, resilience, and “leaning in.” We recommend critical visual literacy as a tool in the educational context to identify and address violence, to fight inequity, and to establish emancipatory discourses.

The purpose of this study is to understand how Latinx preservice teachers (LPSTs) engage their multimodal and multilingual literacies to create comic strips about the knowledge and pedagogies found within their homes located within with U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Drawing on pedagogies of the home and Chicanx/Latinx multimodality, the findings illustrate how the LPSTs used comic creation to document teaching and learning practices of biculturalism, cultural preservation, spirituality, remedios, and the importance of education. This study has implications for developing teacher education pedagogies that are reflective of the linguistic and cultural diversity of LPSTs.

This article deals with reading as a significant challenge for higher education students. The study aimed to understand students' experiences of challenges in reading during their first three semesters at university and how they handled these challenges. It is a qualitative case study built on in-depth interviews with nine people studying to be primary teachers and their diaries about reading experiences in the academy. The findings show that students experience considerable anxiety and stress regarding finding enough time for reading tasks and comprehending what they read. They soon discover that extensive reading is a prerequisite for writing, questioning, and active participation in lectures and seminars. Despite experiences of lack of support from their teachers, most students identify new approaches and strategies to develop their reading, moving from passive to active engagement with texts. The findings implicate that continuous support from disciplinary experts is crucial for students' reading and writing development. Such support includes inviting students to participate in disciplinary practices, its tools, concepts, ways of thinking, genres used, approaches to reading, and what it means to reason, analyze, and argue in a discipline.

Kobrin, J. D. (2024). Identity, positioning, and platforms: A case study of an older job seeker in a community technology center. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 67, 229–238. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1321

Kindly note that the author biography should read as:

Jennifer D'haem Kobrin is an Assistant Professor at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA; email: [email protected].