Identity, Language Learning, and Critical Pedagogies in Digital Times

  • Darvin R
  • Norton B
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Abstract

Recognizing how the social landscape of language learning has shifted with innovations in technology, this chapter examines how critical pedagogies have responded to the new structures and relations of power that have evolved in increasingly digital times. As learners perform multiple and dynamic identities in this new world order, how they navigate their investments in the language and literacy practices of classrooms and communities also becomes more complex. To understand the evolution of identity as a central construct of language learning, this chapter looks to original conceptualizations of identity and earlier scholarship that informed it. Major developments in identity research that intersect with the digital are then discussed and classified in three categories: the construction and performance of identities, structures and relations of power, and social and educational inequities. The chapter then proceeds to examine two important issues in language learning that are associated with the digital turn. First, the multiplicity of spaces learners are able to engage with requires the mastery of new and continually evolving literacies. Second, the mechanisms of power have become more invisible, requiring more critical reflection in order to identify and navigate systemic patterns of control. To respond to these challenges, the chapter concludes by recommending specific research areas that will help create transformative critical pedagogies: issues of political economy, digital exclusion, and methodological innovations.

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Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2017). Identity, Language Learning, and Critical Pedagogies in Digital Times. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism (pp. 43–54). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02240-6_3

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