ERIC Number: EJ1476484
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jul
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1746-1979
EISSN: EISSN-1746-1987
Available Date: 0000-00-00
'There's Always Opportunities to Learn': Immigrant-Origin Youth's Use and Understanding of Social Media for Civic Education in the Year 2020
Elena Maker Castro1; Sara Wilf2; Jaime Garcia Guzman3; Laura Wray-Lake2
Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, v20 n2 p342-360 2025
Immigrant-origin youth are a large and growing segment of the US population. As immigrant-origin youth engage in critical civic issues within and beyond the United States, they may use social media to educate themselves and their communities while drawing upon a transnational context and experiences resisting xenophobic rhetoric and policy. Using a multi-method qualitative approach, we conducted thematic analysis to explore over 2200 Twitter (now known as 'X') posts and 11 interviews from a racially/ethnically diverse cohort of 37 immigrant-origin young adults in the United States who posted about political and social issues between January and November of 2020. Guided by Allen and Kidd's framework for civic education, we identified ways in which immigrant-origin youth built agency and a justice-orientation online in 2020, while combating misinformation and the limitations of social media. Youth practitioners can further consider social media as a key developmental context for civic education for immigrant-origin youth.
Descriptors: Immigrants, Citizenship Education, Civics, Social Media, Technology Uses in Education, Misconceptions, Late Adolescents, Diversity, Empowerment
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1F31MD01713501
Author Affiliations: 1Bates College, USA; 2University of California, USA; 3California State University, USA