Chapter 7: Low-Ses Ells’ New Literacies Outside School: Attitudes, Access, and Agency

Seeing literacies as social practices, this chapter examines three adolescent low-SES learners’ agency, access, and attitudes toward new literacies and their socialization into different pathways to new literacy practices within their home milieu. The findings revealed that although new technologies played an important role in the learners’ home literacy practices, the three learners exhibited qualitatively different attitudes toward new technologies. The findings also revealed the existence of a new digital divide, a time-wasting divide, mediated by the agentic nature of the ELLs’ language and literacy learning at home. The findings suggest that while it is important for educators to affirm youths’ literacy practices and identities out of school, educators must also be cognizant of the potholes and possibilities afforded by digital literacies.