Engaging Difference in the Digital Age: Learning with/from Three Somali-Canadian, Muslim, Female YouTubers

Abstract

This collaborative visual ethnography engages the creative work and perspectives of three Somali-Canadian, Muslim, Black female youth YouTubers. The groundbreaking videos they produce and share outside the classroom speak back to absence in the Ontario High School Curriculum and stereotypes circulating in the spaces of popular culture. In this chapter we highlight examples from their work and argue educators and researchers can learn a great deal from the innovative New Literacies practices youth are engaging in outside of school. Kayf, Fartousa, and Hodan’s videos: (a) provide insights into the lived experiences of youth from marginalized communities; (b) point to the need to reconceptualize teacher-student roles in the digital classroom; and (c) demonstrate the power of youth-produced videos to intervene in critical conversations on difference at the intersections of religion, racialization, gender, social class, and ethnicity. To rethink difference and transform teaching and learning, K-12 teachers, teacher educators, and researchers need to pay attention to how youth are representing their identities and perspectives outside the classroom using digital technologies.