Social Networking, Workplace, and Entertainment Literacies: The Out‐of‐School Literate Lives of Newcomer Latina/o Adolescents

Abstract

Abstract Studies indicate that Latino immigrant youths engage in a wide range of sophisticated literacy practices outside of school that are often transnational, crossing various linguistic, cultural, and social spaces. However, Latino immigrant youths drop out of U.S. schools at disproportional rates, suggesting that their literacy practices are not recognized or valued by the educational system. This collective case study investigated the range, form, and purpose of the Out‐of‐School literacies of four Latina/o adolescent English learners who are new arrivals. Findings demonstrated that the most prevalent out‐of‐School literacies that the participants practice take place on the social networking site Facebook, in their workplaces, and through entertainment media sources. A cross‐case analysis suggests that the literacy practices in these spaces have unique and purposeful roles for the individuals that allow them to connect to their home countries and maintain their Latina/o identities. Additionally, the participants use their out‐of‐school literacy practices to acquire English, support themselves, and establish a place to succeed. The five aforementioned spaces that their Facebook, workplace, and entertainment literacy practices fill are virtually absent from their in‐school literacies. This study suggests that literacy pedagogy must not continue to impose a narrow monolingual, monocultural, monoliterate, and monomodal view of Latina/o immigrant students that essentially divests them of their greatest resources. Their literacy practices demonstrate that they are emerging as multilingual, multiliterate, and multicultural transnationals who competently engage in multimodal means of communication.

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