Maggie Struck, PhD candidate in Culture & Teaching, wins Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.

Using an ethnographic research design, this study investigates the meaning-making practices and civic identity of youth within a community based organization and their role as agents (producers of technology) amidst the structural inequalities around them. This study provides insights into how digital media literacies are changing the civic participation of marginalized youth.

This study pushes the field of Civic Learning and Civic Action by analyzing how youth define and redefine themselves as civic actors and the role that technology can play in this. This project builds on the existing collaboration between members of the Teen Tech Crew (TTC) and a local civic technology initiative. The TTC, a group of nine youth, are part of a youth development program targeting youth underrepresented in STEM careers.

Presently, with the support of the civic technology initiative, the teens are developing a civic technology tool to address the lack of access that youth in their community have to job resources.