“Sound” civics, heard histories: A critical case of young children mobilizing digital media to write (right) injustice

Abstract

Drawing on data from a multi-sited study examining making and makerspace technologies’ impact on early social studies education, this article explores how two 1st-grade children mobilized digital media to write (right) a personal issue of geo-civic injustice. Using speculative civic literacies and sound studies as conceptual tools to interrogate young children’s making as civic action, it asks: How do two young students and their teachers discursively make civic futures—speculative stories proposing preferable solutions to problems—through digital making and inquiry? How do the children use “sound” making or “make” sounds to document civic deliberation, practice participation, and take informed action across real and imagined worlds? Presented as a series of strategic sketches, the findings analyze the children’s practices and processes of digital media production. In doing so, this study suggests that sound functioned not only as a modal resource for making, but a critical literacy tool that stitched together heard histories of personal injustice with collaborative problem-solving in elementary social studies.

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