Navigating Context Collapse: A Strengths-based Approach to Building Youth Civic Empowerment. A Response to “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era”

Authors

Ellen Middaugh, San Jose State UniversityFollow
Mariah Kornbluh, University of OregonFollow
Mark Felton, San Jose State UniversityFollow

Abstract

In the article “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era,” the authors joined a new area of research on "civic media literacy," or the capacity to use media with civic intentionality. Building on previous scholarship that examined how to support youth capacity for effective civic inquiry, dialogue, expression, and action in the digital age, the authors contributed to this literature by usefully elaborating on the phenomenon of “context collapse” and the challenges this blurring of the boundaries between public and private spheres may present, particularly in the liminal spaces where the shifting boundaries most clearly depart from the pre-internet era. A central premise of the feature article is that youth and adults are entering into this context with “no training.” However, it has been more than a decade since social media emerged, and we respond by pointing out that in some sense, youth have been training for this for most of their lives. In our response, we reinforce many of the major points of the feature article, but we elaborate to draw focus on youth-driven practices and adaptations that have emerged in our own research and discuss the implications for civic education.

Response to Article

Jane C. Lo, Erica R. Hodgin, and Antero Garcia, Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era

Recommended Citation

Middaugh, E. , Kornbluh, M. , Felton, M. (2023). Navigating Context Collapse: A Strengths-based Approach to Building Youth Civic Empowerment. A Response to “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era”. Democracy and Education, 31 (1), Article 6.
Available at: https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol31/iss1/6