Strengthening Engagement
Self-esteem in Adolescents with Learning Difficulties: A Study from the Perspective of the Students, Parents, and Teachers View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alejandra Caqueo-Urízar
This study evaluates the association between learning difficulties and self-esteem in adolescents in northern Chile. The study sample comprised 116 students aged 13–17 years from government-subsidized schools. The Child and Adolescent Assessment System (SENA) was used to measure the variables considered in this study. The results show that learning and school problems were able to predict 16% (F = 6.416; p = 0.000; R2a = 0.16) of self-esteem variance. It seems that students who present difficulties in their learning process are more vulnerable to not appreciating their qualities and feeling less proud of themselves, which could decrease their self-esteem. These findings should inform the design of future psychoeducational interventions that promote healthy self-esteem.
Peer ‘Mothering’ Among Students in Kenyan Girls Boarding Schools View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Serah Kivuti
Through informal discursive practices and interactions, students within boarding high schools evolve into different selves. In this study, I investigate how informal peer mentoring among young women impacts both their identity trajectories and their schooling experiences. Using a case study, I specifically explore a common form of relationship among high school students in Kenya, where senior students take up 'mothering' roles to informally mentor new students and help them acclimate into the schooling life. I call it the ‘figured world of family relations’ because students take titles meant for biological relations and reassign them to their peers hence creating pretend families within schools. According to Holland et al. figured worlds avail participants the ability to determine the trajectory of their identities within and across figured worlds. I used semi-structured interviews and participant observations to investigate how students in Haki Girls’ School create, use, and remake resources within this figured world and how they, through their discursive practices, transform both themselves and the social space within which they act. My study shows that the strive to gain an agentive role to control their identity trajectories leads students to acquire a profound sense of belonging within the school space.
New Digital Multiliteracies as a Learning Model : Fostering Collaboration, Identity, and Recognition
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rodrigo Abrantes da Silva
This work examines the tension between instrumental and sociocultural perspectives in recent multiliteracies discussions within the field of applied linguistics and literacies studies in Brazil, based on recent literature. The author presents a reinterpretation of the first concept proposed by the New London Group in their 1996 manifesto, drawing on the author's research findings. The work concludes by elucidating the characteristics of new digital multiliteracies in the context of formal education.
