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  • a theory from psychological, cultural, and social anthropology
  • practice and discourse
  • a "figured world" formed through social and situated activities
  • historically situated, socially enacted, and culturally constructed.
  • construct joint meanings and leverage technological, social, and cultural resources.
  • produced in practice through life experiences.
  • social experience and activity
  • participate in activities within particular contexts or "figured worlds"
  • both performances and narratives situated in the "figured world"
  • by developing shared practices, establishing relationships with others, and enacting performances of the self, people construct their selves as learners.
  • embedded in both a collective past ("history-in-system") and a personal subjective history ("history-in-person")
  • shaped by social, cultural, economic factors.
  • enactments of the self as people engage in shared practices and play different roles.
  • how they narrated their activities in the "figured world", and told stories about themselves and their social interactions with other family members.

Theory of Figured Worlds

Applied to the analysis of the Home

Figured worlds colliding: the one of the parents, the one of the youth, the one of home ethnic culture, the one of American modern culture, the one of working class and the one of middle class.

Do the two worlds remain separated within the home? How do they navigate the two worlds inside the home?


Applied to the analysis of the After School Program

I have decided to use the framework of "figured worlds" elaborated by Holland et al. (1998) in my analysis of the experiences, learning, and identity construction that the members of the CAP developed. I argue that the CAP can be understood as a "figured world" formed through social and situated activities. This world was historically situated, socially enacted, and culturally constructed. It was a collectivity where members "figured out" who they were in relation to each other and through a set of practices. (Holland et al. 1998; Urrieta 2007) At the CAP after school program, students came together to construct joint meanings and leveraged technological, social, and cultural resources. Within this "figured world" youth reinvented themselves as filmmakers.


Learning and identity are strongly related. As much as learning is a process of becoming (Wenger 1998), so is identity an act of self-making. (Holland et al. 1998; McCarthey and Moje 2002; Urrieta 2007) Both, identity and learning are produced in practice through life experiences. The theory of "figured worlds" is aligned with the situated perspective on learning which understands it as a social experience and activity. (Lave and Wenger 1991) When people participate in activities within particular contexts or "figured worlds" they engage in both a learning process and an identity work. (Holland et al. 1998; McCarthey & Moje, 2002; Urrieta 2007) Hence, by developing shared practices, establishing relationships with others, and enacting performances of the self, people construct their selves as learners. However, because identity and learning are historical phenomena, their processes are also embedded in both a collective past ("history-in-system") and a personal subjective history ("history-in-person"). (Holland et al. 1998; Urrieta 2007) When people enter "figured worlds" they bring with them a personal subjective history of social life experiences and conceptual understandings that establish different possibilities of engagement.

In my analysis I understand the learning identities of two Latino/Hispanic boys from Mexican origin as both performances and narratives situated in the "figured world" of the CAP. On the one hand, I analyze the enactments of the self that these boys developed as they engaged in shared practices and played different roles. On the other, I analyze how they narrated their activities in the CAP, and told stories about themselves and their social interactions with peers, mentors, and the local community. Furthermore, I review briefly the individual and subjective "history-in-person" of each of them highlighting their family socioeconomic backgrounds, educational attainment, generational status, and the formal schooling tracks they were in. However, before discussing the learning and identity processes of these three Latino/Hispanic boys, I provide a brief analysis of the space, tools, and discourse that characterized the CAP and how they were initially set up by Mr. Lopez, the FHS video technology teacher and one of the co-founders of the after school program.


JP Gee on Figured Worlds as a tool for Discourse Analysis =

"Figured worlds are narratives and images that different social and cultural groups of people use to make sense of the world. They function as simplified models of how things work when they are ‘‘normal’’ and ‘‘natural’’ from the perspective of a particular social and cultural group. They are meant to help people get on with the business of living and communicating without having to reflect explicitly on everything before acting."

"We use words based, as well, on stories, theories, or models in our minds about what is ‘‘normal’’ or ‘‘typical.’’"

"typical stories"

"This is good for getting things done, but sometimes bad in the ways in which such typical stories can marginalize people and things that are not taken as ‘‘normal’’ or ‘‘typical’’ in the story." 169


"What counts as a typical story for people differs by their social and culture groups." 169