Citation

Duncan‐Andrade JMR. Transform. Anthropol. 2007; 15(1): 26-37.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Anthropological Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1525/tran.2007.15.1.26

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent studies of youth and the media indicate that poor students of color spend upwards of six and one half hours per day engaged with electronic media. This intense investment in electronic media by urban youth has led the American Academy of Pediatricians to issue a policy statement encouraging schools to develop a media literacy curriculum; it has also led scholars to call for a critical media literacy pedagogy that empowers urban youth to deconstruct dominant media narratives, develop much-needed academic and critical literacies, and create their own counter-narratives to the media's largely negative depictions of urban youth and their communities. This article highlights a program that employed these pedagogical practices with urban high school students in Los Angeles. The findings of this study suggest that access to this type of literacy pedagogy can positively impact the development of critical civic literacy, civic awareness, and civic participation among urban youth.