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Working Titles

  • Crossing Many Worlds: New Media Practices, Identities, and Assimilation Trajectories of Latino/Hispanic Immigrant Youth in the U.S.
  • Navigating Many Worlds: New Media Practices, Identities, and Sociocultural Trajectories of Latino/Hispanic Immigrant Youth Growing-up in the U.S.
  • Crossing Many Worlds: New Media Practices, Identities, and Assimilation Trajectories of Latino/Hispanic Immigrant Youth Growing-up in Central Texas.


  • Crossing New Worlds: New Media Practices and Assimilation Trajectories of Latino/Hispanic Immigrant Youth Growing-up in Central Texas.

Abstract

My dissertation project, "Crossing New Worlds: New Media Practices and Assimilation Trajectories of Latino/Hispanic Immigrant Youth," is an inquiry into the evolving contours of the digital divide and participation gap through the study of a group of Latino/Hispanic youth and their pathways of assimilation in U.S. society. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted inside a public high school (2011-2012), I examine how Latino/Hispanic youth growing up in Austin, Texas, actively navigate the process of incorporation into a new country as they develop digitally mediated sociocultural practices across three different contexts: at home, after school, and on the Internet. How do new media access and uses of technology shape their assimilation process? What kind of resources are they cultivating and mobilizing as they use new media? How do new media skills help them to navigate various sociocultural worlds? Through a series of case studies of five immigrant youths with Mexican origins (two girls and three boys, ages 14-19), working class socioeconomic background, and different generational status (second and 1.5 generation), I examine the interplay between new media practices, the process of assimilation, and digital inequalities. For this purpose, I use a transdisciplinary framework that combines sociocultural theory of identity (Holland et al. 1998; Alzaldua 1999; McCarthey & Moje 2002); communication and cultural theories of media practice and participation (Jenkins 2006a, 2006b; Ito et. Al. 2010; Couldry 2012; Carpentier 2010; Livingstone 2002; Varnelis 2008); theories of digital inequality (Warschauer 2002; DiMaggio et al. 2004; Selwyn 2004; van Dijk 2005; Hargittai 2008; Schradie 2011; Watkins 2012); and sociological theory of segmented assimilation (Portes & Zhou 1993; Rumbaut 1996; Portes & Rumbaut 2001; Portes et. Al. 2005). By revealing the local conditions and structural forces that shape how Latino/Hispanic immigrant youth use of technology in their everyday lives, my analysis provides: new insights in systemic inequalities; a grounded understanding of the role of new media practices in the process of assimilation; and a nuanced description of the diverse media ecologies constructed by minority youth. This research study emerges from the Digital Edge project, a three-year research initiative funded by the MacArthur Foundation as part of the Connected Learning Research Network (CLRN). I draw on the qualitative data I helped to collect as a member of the Digital Edge team during a longitudinal ethnography conducted at Freeway High School, a large, ethnically diverse, and economically disadvantaged public high school in the Austin Metropolitan Area.

Table of Contents

Core Themes

The theoretical framework that constitutes this project is composed of 7 major concepts:

Prospectus

Journal

Getting started

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