Difference between revisions of "Proposal"

Revision as of 14:20, 8 September 2013

Title

Prospectus.

Latino Youth Digitally Mediated Everyday Lives: Understanding Diverse Forms of Participation in Networked Culture and Society.

Understanding Hispanic/Latino Youth Participation with/through Digital Media : literacy practices in Everyday Life.

Digital Media, Hispanic/Latino Youth, and Socio-Cultural Participation: Understanding Media Practices and Literacies in Everyday Life.

Digital Media, Working class Hispanic/Latino Youth, and Participation: understanding multiliteracies and sociocultural capitals in everyday life.

Problem Statement

Provide a one- to two-paragraph statement that is the result of a review of research findings and current practice and that contains the following information:

1. A logical argument for the need to address an identified gap in the research literature that has relevance to the discipline and area of practice.

Understanding diversity of new literacies and digital media practices among youth. Study an understudied minority population of hispanic/latino youth from Mexican origin and working class families. Describe the texture of their digitally mediated lives, especially in not-school contexts : home, afterschool, and mobile. Understanding their identities, literacy practices, and participation in different social realms: afterschool, home, and SNSs. And the interrelation among those different realms.

There is little account of the new literacies and practices of this segment of the youth population in the USA. As a growing population, it is important to understand it and to see how they are participating in culture and society. What are the conditions under where they participate.

Although the current generation of young people is usually described as digitally literate, savvy, and digital natives, they are actually not homogeneous at all.

Claims of a more participatory culture and the potential of new digital media and networked environment have been made. This research project tries to understand what are the opportunities that young people is in fact really getting as they use and acquire new literacies, as they enter the networked environment, as they browse the web.

2. Preliminary evidence that provides justification that this problem is meaningful to the discipline or professional field. Provide three to five key citations that highlight the relevance and currency of the problem.

Several findings that talk about new literacies, new media literacies, multiliteracies. There is a lot of research, a burgeoning research on the kind of new languages, forms and modes of communication. Especially the informal one, and the relation with popular culture, and participation.

There are studies, data, quantitative studies that reveal that young people is using new technologies. There are also several stories of successful cases of youth entrepreunershio, content creators, etc.

3. The overall purpose or intention of the study.

• In qualitative studies, describe the need for increased understanding about the issue to be studied, based on the identified gap or problem.

• In mixed-methods studies, with both quantitative and qualitative aspects, clarify how the two approaches will be used together to inform the study.

Significance

Provide one to two paragraphs, informed by the topic in the problem statement, which describe(s):

1. How this study will contribute to filling the gap identified in the problem statement—What original contribution will this study make?

2. How this research will support professional practice or allow practical application— Answer the So what? question.

3. How the claim aligns with the problem statement to reflect the potential relevance of this study to society—How might the potential findings lead to positive social change?

Importance of understanding the complexity of multilitaracies, the interrelation between literacy practices, and its relevance for social and cultural participation. Understanding these literacies in a disadvantaged youth population, in a specific segmented population, in their everyday lives, can reveal the inequalities that exist in current society.

The results can shape policy, education, and pedagogies. How can these youth become fully participants? how can they acquire, use, and understand the interrelation between literacies? What is needed? Why do we need to teach new literacies at school?

Demonstrating the relationship of multiliteracies to social and cultural capital also reveals how structural inequalities of society reproduce.

Implications for research and practice. Theoretical and applied.

Literacies as a social and cultural practice are not only learned in formal education. They are used and acquired in the everyday. Ethnography becomes very appropriate for understanding them.

Understanding, especifically, the literacies related to digitally mediated participation in culture and society.

A particular population that is diverse, is growing, but is also a cultural minority, usually in working class position. Hence, a disadvantage class position.

Implications for research and practice. Theoretical and applied. Researchers are seeking to offer an approach to pedagogy which draws on understandings that have emerged from the broad range of literacy research.

Researching literacy is necessarily a complex activity. Depending on how one defines literacy, the particular aspects one wish to explore, and the categories that one wants to observe in a given context, change. Observing literacy practices as well as analysing self-reported accounts of these practices.

In order to move beyond this level and towards explaining and accounting for participants’ activities, the researcher’s language of description has to act as ‘a translation for, rather than a simple reduplication of the language of the researched’.

Background

Provide a representative list of scholarship and findings that support the main assertions in the problem statement, highlighting their relationship to the topic (e.g., “This variable was studied with a similar sample by Smith (2010) and Johnson (2008),” or “Jones’s (2011) examination of industry leaders showed similar trends in the same key segments.”).

Intersection of fields of digital media and learning, participation, and youth.

Framework

In one paragraph, describe the theoretical base or conceptual framework in the scholarly literature that will ground the study. Base this description on the problem, purpose, and background of your study. This theory or framework informs, and is informed by, the research question(s) and helps to identify research design decisions, such as the method of inquiry and data collection and analysis.

Research Question(s)

List the question or a series of related questions that are informed by the study purpose, which will lead to the development of what needs to be done in this study and how it will be accomplished. A research question informs the research design by providing a foundation for: • Generation of hypotheses in quantitative studies, • Questions necessary to build the design structure for qualitative studies, and a • Process by which different methods will work together in mixed studies.

Nature of the Study

Using one of the following terms as a subheading, provide a concise paragraph that discusses the approach that will be used to address the research question(s) and how this approach aligns with the problem statement. The subheadings and examples of study design are:

• Qualitative—for ethnography, case study, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, phenomenological research, or policy analysis.

Possible Types and Sources of Information or Data

Provide a list of possible types and sources of information or data for this study, such as test scores from college students, employee surveys, observations of children, interviews with practitioners, historical documents from state records, deidentified medical records, or information from a federal database.

Possible Analytical Strategies (Optional)

Provide some possible ways to organize and analyze the results obtained by the research strategies detailed previously. A few examples of possible analytical strategies include multiple regression, content analysis, and meta-analysis.

Other Information (Optional)

Provide any other relevant information, such as challenges or barriers that may need to be addressed when conducting this study.

References

Include references formatted in the correct style (APA sixth edition, modeled at the end of this guide) for all citations within the Dissertation Prospectus.