Critical literacies in a digital age: current and future issues

ABSTRACT

Resurgent social, political, cultural, and economic tensions, in part facilitated by emerging information and communication technologies, underscore the need to cultivate new forms of critical literacy in our digital age. These critical digital literacy (CDL) practices share a specific focus on navigating, interrogating, critiquing, and shaping textual meaning across digital and face-to-face contexts. In this introductory article, the guest editors overview several examples of pedagogical scholarship concerned with these practices, collectively referred to as CDL. Specifically, the guest editors frame this collection of articles in this issue around the following question: In an educational context increasingly marked by volatility and uncertainty, but also connection and creative potential, in what ways might a focus on CDL inform pedagogical theory and practice? Drawing from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and contexts, this article discusses how educators and researchers are currently addressing the nature and role of CDL in contemporary educational settings within and beyond institutions: in K-12 and higher-education classroom pedagogy, pre- and in-service teacher education, affinity spaces, the role of design and imagination, critical computation, and digital civic participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical theory
• literacies
• computation
• digital media
• politics of education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Earl Aguilera

Earl Aguilera is an assistant professor at the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at California State University, Fresno. His work examines issues at the intersection of literacy, technology integration, and educational equity, particularly for students from historically marginalized backgrounds. Prior to his time at Fresno State, he worked as a high school English teacher and K-12 reading specialist.

Jessica Z. Pandya

Jessica Zacher Pandya is Professor of Teacher Education and Liberal Studies at California State University, Long Beach. A former kindergarten teacher in the California Bay Area who received her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, her research focuses on children’s literacy and identity work in diverse urban classrooms. Her latest book is the coedited Handbook of Critical Literacies (Routledge, 2021).