West African Youth Navigating Identity Narratives Via Podcasting

Overview of the Research Study

Despite the sustained increase of Black immigrant youth (BIY) in US classrooms, BIY in many respects are an overlooked group. The impetus for this study rested on the need to support the multifaceted identities of BIY in US classrooms. Its purpose was to examine the ways in which BIY utilize critical multiliteracies (Pirbhai-Illich, 2010) as a medium of response to single story discourses, when provided with a designed intervention space that gives them the room and agency to interrogate and disrupt dominant discourses about their identities. Such dominant discourses include notions of cultural inferiority and moral ambiguity. These dominant discourses not only lead to displacement and identity confusion for Black immigrant students (Kumi-Yeboah et al., 2021; Skerrett & Omogun, 2020), but they also influence their academic experiences and trajectories (Mwangi & English, 2017). 

This study was designed as a three-week summer podcasting program that supported 17 BIY from various nations in West Africa. The findings from this study have contributed to the proliferation of many authentic, agentive stories of BIY. The findings have also illuminated the nature of the narratives that BIY author, as well as provide insight on how podcasting as civically engaged storytelling (PACES) can support BIY and other students in ELA learning spaces. 

On this site I share a sample of the participant-created web pages and some of their podcast episodes.