Citation

Yi, J. (2022). Reading diverse books is not enough: Challenging racist assumptions using Asian American children's literature. Social Studies and the Young Learner. 34 (3), 8-13. 

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the performance of teacher agency amidst national financial and professional deficits in education and sheds light on the growing utilization of Instagram in elementary school contexts. To better understand teachers’ use of this social media platform, we examined the Instagram accounts of 12 highly popular and influential pre-K–6 teachers (i.e., teacher influencers). Data sources comprised over 600 visual and textual posts, which included images, captions, hashtags, and emojis, produced over 3 months in the spring of 2019. Using qualitative coding procedures (Saldaña, 2009) that were recursive and emphasized the emergent nature of interpretation through a critical literacies and neoliberal framework, we documented the teachers’ use of Instagram as a method of participation in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and as a way to produce, commodify, and possibly profit from posts presented as curricula. Findings suggest that teacher influencers primarily used Instagram as a form of commodification and commerce, as educational content was promoted to users as well as methods of purchase via personal websites, Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), and other digital stores. Overall, the teacher influencers’ Instagram use revealed a convergence of complex and multiple discourses involving curriculum, racialized and/or gendered identities, and neoliberal production.

Keywords: Instagram, social media, neoliberalism, schooling, commodification

Citation

Davis, S. & Yi, J. (2022). Double tap, double trouble: Teachers, Instagram, pedagogy, and profit. E-Learning and Digital Media. https://doi.org/10.1177/20427530211064706

Abstract

This literature review critically examines the recent scholarship centering the social media platform Pinterest and its use among teachers and educators. Amid its burgeoning popularity in school contexts, issues of concern regarding how Pinterest has affected elementary curricular resources are explored. 

Keywords: Pinterest, Social Media, Digital Literacies, Curriculum

Citation

Yi, J. (2021). How Pinteresting! The emergence of a new curricular resource. Literacies Across the Lifespan, 1(2), 24-30. 

Abstract

This critical content analysis explores transnational, transracial adoption narratives in 33 picturebooks. Using Asian Critical Race Theory, this study examines how Asian American adoptees are represented in contemporary realistic fiction picturebooks. Despite the variance in stories, findings demonstrate that a racialized “stock story” of Asian adoptees is developed which stereotype Asian Americans and simultaneously deny adoptees’ lived experiences.

Keywords: Adoption, Asian American, Transnational, AsianCrit, critical content analysis

Citation

Yi, J. (2021). Memoirs or Myths? Storying Asian American adoption in picturebooks. Journal of Children's Literature., 47(2), 22-34. 

Abstract

Upon arrival in the United States, international students not only encounter culture shock and complex linguistic barriers but also immediate trans- mutation into minorities. In a classroom setting, foreigners must confront continually evolving negotiations of competence, membership, and identity to validate their place in academic discourse. Pervading their efforts for validation, of course, are racialized issues of generalization, stereotype, power, and access. For many, academic socialization goes beyond the formation of scholarly discipline and positive peer relationships to include denial of cultural norms and adoption of alien practices.

This study examines how some international students may resist cultural and linguistic marginalization and stereotyping through purposeful management of personal agency in discursive practice. Specifically, I investigate how two Korean graduate students represented themselves as dynamic classroom participants and academic scholars in a U.S. context. While characterizing themselves as reticent, they rejected the notion that silence equates passivity or a noncontributory disposition. Rather, these learners demonstrate active negotiation of identity and positionality within their academic community and throughout their participation in academic domains. In the process, their academic experiences as Asians in America provide support for expanding notions of a dynamic Asian American iden- tity to account for growing transnational and global perspectives.

Citation

Yi, J. (2020). Reticence as participation: Discourses of resistance from Asians in America. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2020.1757959

Abstract

This study examined a literacy playshop curriculum that integrated maker literacies (i.e., collaborative play, toyhacking, filmmaking, video editing, and remixing media) in two US teacher education classes with approximately 40 university students. Preservice teachers engaged in digital puppetry activities using makerspace tools, iPads, and puppetry apps for young children. The preservice teachers used craft materials to hack or redesign favorite media characters’ action figures to make interactive puppets for original films and for teaching a filmmaking lesson with a young child. Nexus analysis of literacy playshop activity analyzed preservice teachers’ knowledge of seemingly “intuitive” digital literacies as a nexus of practice, or the tacit expectations, social practices, and text conventions in viral videos or computer apps that become engrained through engagements with immersive and embodied technologies. The chapter concludes with a summary of maker literacies and implications for early education gleaned from the complex interactions around teaching and learning through collaborative storytelling with iPad touchscreens.

Citation

Wohlwend, K.E., Scott, J.A., Yi, J. H., Deliman, A., & Kargin, T. (2017). Hacking toys and remixing media: Integrating maker literacies into early childhood teacher education. In Danby S. J., Fleer, M., Davidson, C., & Hatzigianni, M. (Eds.) Digital childhoods–Technologies in children’s everyday lives. Singapore, Singapore: Springer Nature.

Excerpt

... a distinct gap in academic research exists regarding the impact of the beauty ideal on children and teenagers as seen in contemporary literature. This article addresses this void by exploring a cul- tural perspective on beauty through an examination of young adult fiction. Its purpose is to identify the messages concerning appearance that are relayed to young people of color in an adult world dominated by specific standards of beauty. Specifically, I analyze An Na’s young adult (YA) fiction novel, The Fold (2008), for cultural examples of how some Korean American teenagers seek the Western model of physical beauty and how such standards influence the construction of ethnic identity. Due to limited academic scholarship on this topic within the field of children’s and YA literature, I refer to studies and research from several other domains, including popular media (e.g. blogs and online news articles), Asian American studies, feminist studies, and advertising.

Citation

Yi, J. (2015). Beauty is in the eye of the west: An analysis of An Na’s The Fold. The ALAN Review, Summer 2015, 48-59.

Abstract

This article examines the impact of immigration on Korean children through a content and literary analysis of 14 children’s picture books. A majority of published children’s literature dealing with the subject of Korean Americans or Korean immigration contains culturally specific themes common to the Korean immigration experience. These include English acquisition difficulties, assimilation through name selection, language mediation, family separation and abandonment, and positive experiences post-immigration. While unassumingly couched in children’s fiction, these issues reflect real-life experiences and are analyzed here through a social and cultural context. I provide suggestions for applying the article’s findings in classrooms, schools, and districts in order to ease acculturation and transition procedures for Korean families. The article may appeal to readers interested in immigration issues, the interplay between home and school environments, language barriers for second language learners, and social studies issues found in children’s fiction.

Citation

Yi, J. (2014). My heart beats in two places: Immigration stories in Korean American picture books. Children’s Literature in Education, 45(2), 129-144.