"when students are listening to a lecture, they are ‘doing something.’ They are listening. How actively they listen is in part on us — their teachers." If we’re going to lecture, and we want students to retain what we say, we need to work to ensure that they will learn from our efforts. That means designing activities that prime students to listen actively.

Telling is an excellent method of communicating specific information, and there are plenty of occasions when our students need specific information. To communicate important facts, to illustrate a concept with a story of its application, to explain the historical origins of a conflict, you can take the easiest route from A to B and just tell (i.e., lecture) your students.

Thanks to Airbnb, everyone can find that affordable night's sleep, and anyone can become a landlord. But there's more to renting out your extra space than making some cash, meeting interesting people, and then watching them slowly succumb to your H.H. Holmes-inspired hostel of horrors. There are, of course, taxes to consider.

But there's more to renting out your extra space than making some cash, meeting interesting people, and then watching them slowly succumb to your H.H. Holmes-inspired hostel of horrors. There are, of course, taxes to consider.

" I want there to be a continuum, a narrative, that tracks the history of people disseminating, collecting, sharing data.

As Wolcott (2010) noted, new skills do not become stable until time has passed and students have persevered through the confusion of uncertainty.

The importance assumed for collaboration within NL has almost become ubiquitous and is frequently seen as unquestionably desirable.

Our design model builds on this approach by focusing on supports and mechanisms for building envi-ronments that connect learning across the spheres of interests, peer culture, and academic life.

Connected learning addresses the gap between in-school and out-of-school learning, intergenerational disconnects, and new equity gaps arising from the privatization of learning. In doing so, connected learning taps the opportunities provided by digital media to more easily link home, school, community and peer contexts of learning; sup-port peer and intergenerational connections based on shared interests; and create more connections with non-dominant youth, drawing from capacities of diverse communities.

Connected learning is a model of learning and social change that is not defined by a specific technology, tool, or technique. Instead, connected learning is defined by a commitment to social equity and progressive learning, and seeks to mold the uptake of new technologies and techniques based on these commitments.

To clarify not only to survey respondents, but also to raise awareness to the public, the report provides the definition of OER based on the Hewlett Foundation’s definition: “Teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”

Occupy revitalises hope in the power of ideas through the power of doing,

attempts to occupy the university curriculum, not as a programme of education but as the production of critical knowledge, may also constitute ‘a new pedagogy of space and time’. We will describe this occupation of

Occupy points to the centrality of space and time as practical concepts through which it is possible to reconfigure revolutionary activity. By dealing with the concept (Occupy) at this fundamen tal level of space and time through a critical engagement with Henri Lefebvre’s notion of ‘a

ntracategorical complexity inau- gurated the study of intersectionality, I discuss it as the second approach because it falls conceptually in the middle of the continuum between the first approach, which rejects categories, and the third approach, which uses them strategically. Like the first approach, it interrogates the bound- ary-making and boundary-defining process itself

Like the third approach, it acknowledges the stable and even durable relationships that social categories represent at any given point in time, though it also maintains a critical stance toward categories. This approach is called intracategorical complexity because authors working in this vein tend to focus on particular social groups at neglected points of intersection—“people whose identity crosses the boundaries of tradition- ally constructed groups” (Dill 2002, 5)—in order to reveal the complexity of lived experience within such groups.

Finally, these critiques dovetailed with two separate but highly influential developments: first, the postmodernist and poststruc- turalist critiques of modern Western philosophy, history, and language (see, e.g., Foucault 1972; Derrida 1974), and second, critiques by fem- inists of color of white feminists’ use of women and gender as unitary and homogeneous categories reflecting the common essence of all women.

intercategorical complexity , requires that scholars provisionally adopt existing analytical categories to document relationships of inequality among social groups and changing configura- tions of inequality along multiple and conflicting dimensions

In total, I describe three approaches.

The three approaches, in brief, are defined principally in terms of their stance toward categories, that is, how they understand and use analytical categories to explore the complexity of intersectionality in social life.

The first approach is called anticategorical complexity because it is based on a methodology that deconstructs analytical categories. Social life is consid- ered too irreducibly complex—overflowing with multiple and fluid de- terminations of both subjects and structures—to make fixed categories anything but simplifying social fictions that produce inequalities in the process of producing differences.

bell hooks’s Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984): “Feminists have not succeeded in creating a mass movement against sexual oppression because the very foundation of women’s liberation has, until now, not accounted for the complexity and diversity of female experience.”

Feminists have written widely on methodology but have either tended to focus on a particular methodology (e.g., ethnography, deconstruction, genealogy, ethnomethodology) or have failed to pinpoint the particular issue of complexity.

In a nutshell, research practice mirrors the complexity of social life, calling up unique methodological demands.

I suggest, however, that intersectionality has introduced new methodological problems and, partly as an unintended consequence, has limited the range of methodological approaches used to study intersectionality.

As for the origins of the term itself, it was probably first highlighted by Kimberle ́ Crenshaw (1989, 1991). Many other key texts introduced the conceptual framework and offered similar terms: see Davis 1981; Moraga 1983; Smith 1983; hooks 1984; Moraga and Anzaldu ́ a 1984; Glenn 1985; Anzaldu ́ a 1987, 1990; King 1988; Mohanty 1988; Spelman 1988; Sandoval 1991.

Researchers, educators, policymakers, and other education stakeholders hope and anticipate that openness and open scholarship will generate positive outcomes for education and scholarship. Given the emerging nature of open practices, educators and scholars are finding themselves in a position in which they can shape and/or be shaped by openness. The intention of this paper is (a) to identify the assumptions of the open scholarship movement and (b) to highlight challenges associated with the movement’s aspirations of broadening access to education and knowledge.

So, suppose knowledge is not the goal of education. Rather, suppose today’s content knowledge is an offshoot of successful ongoing learning in a changing world – in which ‘learning’ means ‘learning to perform in the world.’

The educational thought experiment I wish to undertake concerns curriculum. Not the specific content of curriculum, but the idea of curriculum, what any curriculum is, regardless of subject. Like Copernicus, I propose that for the sake of better results we need to turn conventional wisdom on it is head: let’s see what results if we think of action, not knowledge, as the essence of an education; let’s see what results from thinking of future ability, not knowledge of the past, as the core; let’s see what follows, therefore, from thinking of content knowledge as neither the aim of curriculum nor the key building blocks of it but as the offshoot of learning to do things now and for the future.

Teaching has been reduced to the written equivalent of TV news sound bites in pan, because so many groups lobby hard for inclusion of their p et ideas Moreover, much of what they wish to be taught i s n ow taught; the problem is that it isn't learned and can't easily be, given the inert and glib quality of the text. Con tent is reducible to sound bites only when curricular lobbyists (and an alarming number of educators) be lieve that learning occurs merely by hearing or seeing the "truth." The problem of student ignorance is thus really about a dult i gnorance as to how thoughtful and long-lasting under standing is achieved

The view that everything of importance can be thoughtfully learned by the 12th grade notice I did not say "taught" is a delusion

Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a "dialogue” with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text. It's also a way to have an ongoing conversation with yourself as you move through the text and to record what that encounter was like for you.

Innovation in education isn’t about the latest gadget or app, or about how adept a student is at using a smartphone to consume the latest Internet meme. It’s about how technological tools can empower students to become who they want to be, and who we need them to be — the kind of children and young people who ask, “What can I improve? How can I help? What can I build?”

implicit social contracts of active, personal curation and direct citation within academic Twitter.

Though all participants were institutionally-affiliated and well aware of the prestige of academic ranks, journal titles, and institutional brands, these were not interpreted as intersecting meaningfully with capacity to contribute to the networked conversation. In fact, profiles that emphasized institutional status were understood by a number of participants as signaling their lack of interest in participatory engagement.

Participants were most likely to assess accounts as credible and likely to make a contribution if they were followed by users the participant already knew and respected. Professional and personal commonalities were also central to perceptions of others’ capacity to contribute, but less visible in assessments of credibility.

It was capacity for contribution to this larger conversation that counted most in participants’ assessments of others’ influence.

Academia’s complex prestige hierarchy is reliant on gatekeeping and competition. Forms of influence based in open participatory practices are by definition illegible – and even illegitimate – within that system.

In the academy, reputations and influence measures speak to status and standing. They circulate signals of capacity and credibility by boiling down complex indicators: the journals we publish in, the school(s) we’re affiliated with, our citation counts and h-indexes, our last grants, our ranks in the academic hierarchy. These proxies for quality combine prestige, metrics, and recognizability into a mercurial mix that can be circulated and understood across disciplines and ideological lines, but never quite reduced to its component parts.

As more and more academics take to Twitter and other networked platforms to connect and share their work and ideas, a new sphere of influence is opening. And it is beginning to infiltrate academia itself.

"Racism, sexism, and other forms of exclusionary behavior are in and of themselves nuanced and multilayered," says Freada Kapor Klein, a prominent advocate for tech diversity and founder of the not-for-profit Level Playing Field Institute.

"We don't have intentional bigots, but we have very smart, well-meaning, creative people who are systematically engaging in biased behavior." It is racist, for example, to approach a recruiting firm with the mandate to fill an engineering position only with someone from one particular Ivy League school, where blacks comprise a single-digit percentage of the student population. It is racist to rely on employee referrals for hires, when the typical social network of a white American is 1% black. And it is racist to impose standards of "culture fit"—the absurd notion that employees must behave (and sometimes appear) in a way that makes others feel comfortable—on job candidates. These are typical, and convenient, hiring practices of startup founders. Under enormous pressure to grow their companies fast, they feel entitled to dismiss niceties such as an HR department that might seek out minority candidates. But their very inaction is a manifestation of extreme bias, even if it's subconscious.

If you want to help low-income students succeed, it’s not enough to deal with their academic and financial obstacles. You also need to address their doubts and misconceptions and fears. To solve the problem of college completion, you first need to get inside the mind of a college student.

“Quasi,” he says. “Take it from an old spectator. Life’s not a spectator sport. If watchin’s all you’re gonna do, then you’re gonna watch your life go by without you.”

I know I need to touch, gently, upon the notion that making friends or finding love entails risk. There’s no guarantee of forever. There may be heartbreak. But we do it anyway. I drop this bitter morsel into the mix, folding around it an affirmation that he took a risk when he went to an unfamiliar place on Cape Cod, far from his friends and home, and found love. The lesson, I begin, is “to never be afraid to reach out.”

That desire to connect has always been there as, the latest research indicates, it may be in all autistic people; their neurological barriers don’t kill the desire, even if it’s deeply submerged. And this is the way he still is — autism isn’t a spell that has been broken; it’s a way of being. That means the world will continue to be inhospitable to him, walking about, as he does, uncertain, missing cues, his heart exposed. But he has desperately wanted to connect, to feel his life, fully, and — using his movies and the improvised tool kit we helped him build — he’s finding his footing. For so many years, it was about us finding him, a search joined by Griffin and others. Now it was about him finding himself.

For most of us, social interactions don’t feel so much like work. We engage instinctively, with sensations and often satisfactions freely harvested in the search itself. For Owen, much of that remains hard work. Despite his often saying to Griffin that his aim is to be popular — a catchall for the joys of connecting with other people — that goal, largely theoretical, has been like watery fuel in his sputtering engine.

Dr Ng ended his speech by saying: “Mr Lee, all these Singaporeans, young and old, whose lives you have touched – it is they who matter, as you always said, and who have pronounced the final judgement on your life’s work. It is a great work that has surpassed all expectations. It is called Singapore and filled with Singaporeans who love and revere you. Majulah Singapura. Rest in peace.”

“There will not be another Lee Kuan Yew who made us better than we are or could be. Mr Lee Kuan Yew founded, moved and lifted a nation. Because of his unwavering devotion and a life poured out for Singapore, he has made all our lives better and for many generations to come. Few mortals have accomplished so much in their lifetime. We in this House are honoured to have lived and served with him. His legacy will live on through us and through this nation.

I called on Mr Lee at the Istana and told him about our plans. He said he would be in Parliament that day on Sept 16th. “Unfortunately, when that day came, a dehydrated and weakened Mr Lee had to go to hospital and be put on a drip. His doctors advised him not to attend Parliament. We were informed and called off our plans. But just before Parliament adjourned, we were surprised when Mr Lee entered this Chamber. I found out later that he over-ruled his doctors, saying that he must attend Parliament because he had given his commitment. He wanted to walk but thankfully his doctors persuaded him that it would be acceptable for a 90-year-old on intravenous nutrition to be wheeled into the chamber. That September 16th, this House had the last privilege to wish him happy birthday together. After Parliament adjourned, he stayed on as we cut his birthday cake and sang him a birthday song. At age 90, frail and dehydrated, Mr Lee kept his word to be here. “Great strength of character, determination and integrity. Lee Kuan Yew had all of these qualities and more. He kept his promises. What he said he would do, he would and more - whether it was for individuals or an entire nation.’

“In 2009, Mr Lee at 86 years, unexpectedly joined a debate on a motion about equality in this House. He said, ‘Sir, I had not intended to intervene in any debate. But I was doing my physiotherapy just now and reading the newspapers and I thought I should bring the House back to earth.... and remind everybody what is our starting point, what is our base, and if we do not recognise where we started from, and that these are our foundations, we will fail.’ “Mr Lee went on to explain why the Constitution of Singapore ‘enjoins us (the Government) to specifically look after the position of the Malays and other minorities’.

He said in 1968 in this House ‘If we were a soft community, then the temptation would be to leave things alone and hope for the best. Then, only good fortune can save us from the unpleasantness which reason and logic tell us is ahead of us. But we are not an easy-going people. We cannot help thinking, calculating and planning for tomorrow, for next week, for next month, for next year, for the next generation. And it is because we have restless minds, forever probing and testing, seeking new and better solutions to old and new problems, that we have never been, and I trust never shall be, tried and found wanting.’

By the time the British withdrew in Oct 1971, we had avoided massive unemployment...’.

In his first election in 1955, he told the voters of Tanjong Pagar, that out of 25 divisions, he wanted to represent ‘workers, wage earners and small traders, not wealthy merchants or landlords’. This was why he ‘chose Tanjong Pagar, not Tanglin’.

A nation cries out in mourning. No one moved Singapore as Mr Lee did - not in life, sickness or death. We in this House, together with all Singaporeans here and abroad, weep that Mr Lee is no longer among us.”

Sitting in these meetings, I was struck by how Mr Lee approached this delicate situation. He did not say one thing to one and sing a different tune to the other. If they had compared notes later, they would have found his underlying position consistent. What made him persuasive was how he addressed the concerns and interests of each side. I could see from the way both reacted that his arguments struck a chord, and one of the guests asked a note-taker to write the notes verbatim for deeper study later on. In 2000, when I was at MTI a few months after this meeting, I was very pleased to witness China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation at the Doha meeting.

But there is one quality of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s that we can, and need to, aspire towards: Mr Lee’s unwavering and total dedication to Singapore, to keeping Singapore successful so that Singaporeans may determine our own destiny, and lead meaningful, fulfilling lives.

Insights are valuable, but how does Mr Lee turn insights into results? I believe it is through a single-minded focus on achieving whatever he sets out to do.

If things go wrong, do not sweep them aside. Confront the problems, get to the root of the difficulties, and wrestle with these resolutely. Go for long-term success, and do not be deterred by criticisms.

MR LEE expanded our external space, by being a principled advocate of collaboration, based on long-term interests.

What are the implications? What should we be doing differently? Nothing is too big or too small. I accompanied Mr Lee on many overseas trips. The 1998 trip to the US is particularly memorable. Each day brought new ideas, and throughout the trip, I sent back many observations for our departments to study. It might be the type of industry that we might develop or the type of trees that might add colour to our garden city. This remains very much his style today.

His every waking moment is devoted to Singapore, and Mr Lee wants Singapore to be successful, beyond his term as prime minister.

Mental map MR LEE’S rich insights on issues come from a capacious and disciplined mind. He listens and reads widely, but he does so like a detective, looking for and linking vital clues while discarding the irrelevant. He has a mental map of the world where he knows its contours well. Like a radar, he is constantly scanning for changes and matching these against the map. What might appear as random and disparate facts to many of us are placed within this map, and hence, his mental map is constantly being refreshed. A senior US leader described this well: Mr Lee is like a one-man intelligence agency. The most remarkable feature of the map in Mr Lee’s head is the fact that the focal point is always Singapore. I mentioned his favourite word, “So?”. Invariably, the “so?” question ends with, “So, what does this mean for Singapore?”.

Rather than limit our educational interventions to “engaging” or “developing” youth who are assumed to be in some way deficient, we might instead consider that the lack lies in the stories, identities, activities, and organizational roles that are open and available to them. Put differently, the “problem” may not be that young people are disengaged, but that there are critical disconnects between the social, cultural, and institutional worlds of youth and adults. Too often, young people are given the message that the issues they care about are trivial, lack broader relevance, and/or are beyond their grasp and therefore require officially recognized expertise to address. Very rarely are they invited to participate in activities of consequence that make a real difference in the adult-facing world, even though they may be engaged in meaningful and consequential forms of organizing and production in their digitally networked lives and peer communication.

“connected civics,” where young people can experience civic agency in a way that is embedded in meaningful social relationships, tied to deeply held interests and affinities, and powered by their various modes of creative expression and cultural production. We have dissected the properties of narratives, practices, and infrastructures that constitute “consequential connections” that tie together these more conventionally disconnected spheres. As a dimension of participatory politics, connected civics offers a powerful mode of learning and civic agency because it engages young people through deeply held identities and compelling cultural narratives, is driven by shared practices and purpose, and is grounded in a robust but accessible networked infrastructure. Further, by drawing together interests, agency, and civic opportunity, it infuses each sphere with the power of the other, making civics compelling—sometimes fun—and socially connected, and making social activity and cultural production reach for a higher calling.

“the logic of connective action” that mobilizes through “personal action frames” and distributed social networks and differs from collective action centered on organizationally brokered groups and actions. The narratives and practices of connected civics draw their power from personal investments and interests supported by social media and affinity networks. At the same time, building consequential connections to civic opportunities and agency also involves tying these networks and interests to durable infrastructures and existing institutions, constituting what Bennett and Segerberg have described as hybrid forms that sit between connective and collective action networks.

Whether it involves a campaign orchestrated through a tight-knit affinity network or lightweight circulation of a political meme among peers on a social media site, participatory politics are enabled by the accessibility of media production, circulation, and communication.

By highlighting the role of identity, interest, and affinity across the range of cases we consider here, our aim is not to elide these differences but to offer a concept of learning that is sufficiently expansive to embrace the broad range of activities we are seeing among young people who are connecting the cultural and the political in transformative ways.

We draw from Jim Gee's (2005) term “affinity spaces,” which he uses to describe online places where people interact around a common passion and/or set of commitments, but broaden our focus to civic and political action and wider networks. We use the term affinity network to signal contexts that can span multiple sites and platforms but hold at their center joint interests, activities, and identities.

Importantly, though, among the key learning tasks within connected civics is understanding shared experience and what it takes to “take turns accepting losses in the public sphere” while acknowledging and honoring “the losses that others have accepted” (Allen, 2012, p. 1). This means not mistaking interest for entitlement to be a part of something, but rather recognizing affinity as a point of access through which to pursue thoughtful collaboration.

This view of civic learning as “connected” brings together peer culture, personal interests and identities, and opportunities for young people to be recognized in sites of power in the wider world (Ito et al., 2013). Young people's entry points to connected learning and connected civics can be through their everyday social, creative, and community engagements, or through formal adult-guided programs and learning institutions. What is distinctive about a connected approach to civic learning is that it brings together these spheres in a meaningful and efficacious learning experience. In contrast to more fleeting or institutionally-driven forms of learning, connected learning experiences are tied to deeply felt interests, bonds, passions, and affinities and are as a consequence both highly engaging and personally transformative. Importantly, though, among the key learning tasks within connected civics is understanding

The pivot between the cultural and the political can be enduring or ephemeral. In either case, it can be transformative for the young people involved, and for the issues of public concern they take on through their work and play (Jenkins, Gamber-Thompson, Kligler-Vilenchik, Shresthova, & Zimmerman, forthcoming).

Also highly relevant to our framework is Kligler-Vilenchik's (2013) notion of “mechanisms of translation” that young people deploy to link participatory culture and participatory politics, forming a hybrid mode of engagement she and Shresthova (2012) describe as “participatory culture civics” (Kligler-Vilenchik and Shresthova, 2012).

By stressing these boundaries between expressive and civic culture, our intention is to recognize these existing distinctions in order to find ways to cross and bridge the disconnection between them. We build on how King Beach (1999) has described learning as “consequential transitions.” “Transitions are consequential when they are consciously reflected on, often struggled with, and the eventual outcome changes one's sense of self and social positioning” (p. 114). Also highly relevant to our framework is Kligler-Vilenchik's (

By social justice, we mean efforts geared towards equity, freedom, and sustainability. As articulated within the framework of participatory politics, these activities can involve: production and circulation of information about a matter of public import; carrying out dialogue and feedback related to that issue; investigating topics that are consequential to the community; using that information to hold accountable people in power; and mobilizing others on questions of justice, rights, and equality (Soep, 2014). This normative definition of the civic is unavoidably situated in our own U.S.-inflected progressive traditions, and we feel it is important to recognize and make explicit this cultural and historical specificity.

What counts as “civic” is a normative designation grounded in specific cultural values and institutionalized practices. We use the term to designate activities that include involvement in state apparatuses (what is traditionally deemed “politics”), as well as activities tied to community problem-solving and social justice that do not necessarily lead to or even involve direct governmental action, for example, through so-called “hashtag activism” campaigns inviting peers to share first-person experiences with racial profiling or violence against women. By social justice, we mean efforts geared towards equity, freedom, and sustainability. As articulated within the framework of participatory politics, these activities can involve: production and circulation of information about a matter of public import; carrying out dialogue and feedback related to that issue; investigating topics that are consequential to the community; using that information to hold accountable people in power; and mobilizing others on questions of justice, rights, and equality (Soep,

A young person who is active on Facebook and Instagram, or who organizes a gaming league or fan community, will likely not recognize these activities as relevant to political engagement, or to the activities for which they might earn community service credit at school. And civic educators are much more likely to stress involvement in civic and state institutions than they are to look towards popular culture and youth-centered identities and affinity for evidence of students' political imaginations and actions.

We have observed however, that these questions of learning across settings are actually highly salient for understanding how young people's everyday settings and cultural practices relate to civic and political engagement.

The process of connecting learning across settings is not a simple matter of acquiring generalized knowledge, skills, and frameworks that an individual can “transfer” across diverse settings of life. It turns out that the ability to connect learning across settings rests on a host of other contextual factors, social relationships, and mediating practices (Beach, 1999; Bransford & Schwartz, 2001; Engestrom, 1996). It also hinges on young people's own judgments about the extent to which they even want their civic and political activities to follow them across digital contexts (Weinstein, 2014). Indeed, as a 2012 National Academies report on “deeper learning” concluded: “Over a century of research on transfer has yielded little evidence that teaching can develop general cognitive competencies that are transferable to any new discipline, problem or context, in or out of school” (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012, p. 8).

we need to actively support learning and consequential connections between spaces of youth cultural production, their agency, and their civic and political worlds.

More recent research has interrogated how these dynamics are playing out in contemporary digital environments (boyd, 2014; Ito et al., 2009; Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012). Through remix and other forms of media appropriation, popular culture fans and other consumers can exercise citizenship and create frameworks for activism (Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013). Deploying a “logic of connective action,” young people circulate civic content across fluid social networks that don't necessarily require joining hierarchical political institutions (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). In so doing, they enact forms of citizenship that privilege meaning, identity, and inter-subjectivity as everyday forces that shape political life and opportunity (Bakardijeva, 2009; Dahlgren, 2005). The notion of participatory politics identifies the conditions under which young people's everyday social and cultural engagements can foster forms of civic and political agency that are increasingly accessible due to emerging modes of social connectivity and the spread of digital and networked technology.

Youth ethnographers have described the complex micropolitical dynamics of teen social status negotiations (Eckert, 1989; Milner, 2004; Pascoe, 2007).

Our central question is, how can we support young people's learning and development of deeply personal and culturally resonant forms of civic agency? In order to address this question, we draw from two bodies of theory and research–studies of youth popular culture and sociocultural approaches to learning.

“connected civics” as a form of learning that mobilizes young people's deeply felt interests and identities in the service of achieving the kind of civic voice and influence that is characteristic of participatory politics.

What are the characteristics of the environments that support these connections between social and cultural activities, civic and political practices, and developmental outcomes for young people? And how can we better support these connections and outcomes?

This groundswell of research on participatory politics shows young people linking the experiences of belonging, voice, leadership, and mobilization that they are developing through participatory culture to practices more conventionally thought of as civic and political in nature. Young people are also working in the opposite direction. Those who start off with civic and political commitments bolster those efforts by linking them to participatory culture. The research indicates that these connections between participatory culture and politics don't necessarily form automatically and can be actively brokered by peers and adults, and through organizational infrastructures.

Commentators bemoaning youth apathy worry that digitally-mediated, expression-based forms of civic activity will make young people less likely to take part in institutionalized politics (such as voting), but recent research has indicated the opposite. Involvement in participatory culture—meaning contexts that actively encourage members to make and share creative products and practices that matter to them, supported by informal mentorship (Jenkins, 2006)—can be a gateway to political engagement (Cohen, Kahne, Bowyer, Middaugh, & Rogowski, 2012). Moreover, participatory politics are much more equitably distributed across racial and ethnic groups than conventional measures of political engagement, like voter turnout (Cohen, Kahne et. al.,

We posit three supports that build consequential connections between young people's cultural affinities, their agency in the social world, and their civic engagement: 1. By constructing hybrid narratives, young people mine the cultural contexts they are embedded in and identify with for civic and political themes relevant to issues of public concern. 2. Through shared civic practices, members of affinity networks lower barriers to entry and multiply opportunities for young people to engage in civic and political action. 3. By developing cross-cutting infrastructure, young people–often with adults–institutionalize their efforts in ways that make a loosely affiliated network into something that is socially organized and self-sustaining.