Sara Keenan, M.A., with contributions by JoEllen Fisherkeller, Ph.D., New York University
This article presents qualitative field research conducted among the Youth Media Learning Network’s New York City Fellowship, a professional development program for youth media educators who work both in and out of schools. Sites of professional development are spaces where educators and youth workers can actively and reflectively construct meaning about teaching and the field of youth media education. This case study investigates how the background experiences and the context within which educators and youth workers have learned about and enacted media education—the classroom, the after school program, the community center—inform youth media educators’ language and practices, and how they make sense of their work. In conclusion, we provide suggestions for how the field of youth media education, regardless of educators’ background and contexts of practice, can be sustained and fortified by professional development, building on the successes and limitations of the Youth Media Learning Network’s inaugural experience.
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