{"id":1685,"date":"2023-10-17T17:19:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T17:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inlitas.org\/?p=1685"},"modified":"2024-02-13T14:35:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T14:35:25","slug":"fearing-for-their-lives-implications-of-children-and-youth-as-generators-of-informational-texts-and-literacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inlitas.org\/fr\/fearing-for-their-lives-implications-of-children-and-youth-as-generators-of-informational-texts-and-literacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Craindre pour sa vie : Implications des enfants et des jeunes en tant que g\u00e9n\u00e9rateurs de textes informatifs et d'alphab\u00e9tisation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1974, Paul Zurowski coined the term \u201cinformation literacy\u201d (IL) (Badke, 2010, p. 48) and brought attention to the burgeoning production and complexity of information and the need to study and understand it, given its power and possibilities for shaping\/influencing daily life. Writing in 2013, Zurkowski made clear that \u201c[w]ays must be found to enable ordinary[,] every day citizens [to] produce and wield countervailing power to effectively restrain\u201d \u201cspecial interest money\u201d (p. 2). For Zurkowski, \u201ca combination of IL and a Direct Democracy movement, offer the library community such an opportunity to remodel itself while building, along what [he called] \u201cThe Direct Democracy Coalition for Citizen Rights and Responsibilities,\u201d the power to address \u2026 [the] \u201cissues\u201d he identified then. Quite clearly, Zurkowski had deep ethical concerns about the socio-economic and political life of citizens around the world. He identified IL and information professionals including librarians, as significant to creating a more just and equitable world for all. My paper is embedded in critical, sociocultural\/sociohistorical perspectives (Freire, 1970) and informed by Zurkowski\u2019s vision, and Lloyd\u2019s (2012) \u201cpeople-in-practice\u201d perspective about IL. I highlight contemporary examples of children and youth in the practice of \u201cgenerating\u201d (Zurkowski, 1974), and simultaneously using informational texts and literacies to agentically \u2018speak truth to police power,\u2019 thereby alerting society of their lived realties of fear and injustice. The Canadian information landscape is characterized by \u201ca range of state statistics and figures related to the disappearance and death of Indigenous women and girls\u2026\u201d (Scribe, 2018, p. 48). Jonnie et al.\u2019s (2019) compelling work of youth advocacy is provoked by fear of going missing and winding up dead through misrepresentation\/dehumanization, absence, and need for information, and desire for safety. This takes place in the face of what Amnesty International (2021) describes as \u201cappalling statistics \u2026 consistent with previous estimates from sources such as Statistics Canada that have long pointed to a greatly disproportionate level of violence against First Nations, Inuit and M\u00e9tis women and girls\u201d (para. 4) in Canada. My presentation employs \u201cdescription, analysis, and understanding of experiences\u201d to illustrate their value in understanding the \u201clife worlds\u201d of those we serve as information professionals (Bruce, p. 12), in places marked by ongoing colonial oppression. I was guided by theory of phenomenography (1981) and Bruce\u2019s (2013) application of it to IL research. I feature epistolary writing of adolescents along with relevant interpretive\/theoretical frameworks, such as Indigenous feminism (Joyce, 2020) and reader response theory (Rosenblatt, 1978). This work instantiates critical youth agency\/IL practices through centering multimodal literature produced by youth for the purposes of sharing information about life-threatening phenomena characterizing their life-worlds. Thereby, illustrating youths\u2019 critical awareness of, and need for the \u201ctransformative and empowering\u201d possibilities of IL itself, in and beyond their contexts (Bruce, 2013). Furthermore, my presentation offers insights about IL practices for youth in underserved populations and their resistance to indifference and argues for, and contributes to scholarship about the phenomenographic, \u201cexperiential [and relational] perspective\u201d (Ibid).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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