[Air-L] Query on supportive teen online affinity groups

[Mizuko Ito]

Thanks so much for the heads up on your work Ceclia. I look forward to digging into it and getting the book. Particularly interesting for our search is what you note about the high number of nonbinary teens and the median age of 16. And of course the positive social support and mentoring. 

And thank you to all who responded privately as well! 

> On May 31, 2019, at 5:47 PM, Cecilia Aragon <aragon at uw.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mimi,
> 
> I have a suggestion for your second question but not your first. Over the last five years, my colleague Katie Davis and I, along with our students, have been researching a group of millions of overwhelmingly female and nonbinary teens who contribute to online fanfiction repositories, often rewriting mainstream stories to reflect their own lived experience. In the process, these frequently marginalized teens develop identity, improve their writing skills, and find community and support.
> 
> The numbers involved are staggering. On one fanfiction site alone, young people with a median age of 16 have published over 61.5 billion words of fiction in the past twenty years. For contrast, the Google Books English fiction corpus, covering the past five centuries, contains 80 billion words.
> 
> But what's even more interesting is how these young people are both teaching and learning from each other, via a process facilitated by networked publics that we've come to call distributed mentoring.
> 
> Fanfiction has frequently not been taken seriously, but Katie and I believe it's become a crucially important outlet for marginalized teens in particular. If this is interesting to you, we have a webpage <https://depts.washington.edu/hdsl/research/distributed-mentoring/> on our research and a book <http://ceciliaaragonauthor.com/writers-in-the-secret-garden/>, Writers in the Secret Garden, coming out from MIT Press in August.
> 
> Best regards,
> Cecilia
> 
> --
> Cecilia R. Aragon, Professor
> Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle
> http://faculty.washington.edu/aragon <http://faculty.washington.edu/aragon> | @craragon <https://twitter.com/craragon>New book Writers in the Secret Garden <http://ceciliaaragonauthor.com/writers-in-the-secret-garden/> available for preorder <http://amzn.com/026253780X> from MIT Press 
> 
> On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 9:19 AM Mizuko Ito <mito at itofisher.com <mailto:mito at itofisher.com>> wrote:
> Dear AoIR colleagues,
> 
> I am seeking to expand my knowledge of teen online affinity networks for a new project I am scoping out, and was hoping to tap your wisdom. 
> 
> We are looking to partner with youth online community organizers and influencers to promote positive social support and mental wellness through digital channels. The goal is to work with networks involving teens (ages 13-18) who experience disproportionate amounts of  discrimination, trauma, and stress, and are not currently well-served by more conventional mental health services. We’re particularly interested in serving girls of color and subgroups (eg. immigrant, Latinx, and Muslim teens), and LGBTQIA+ teens. 
> 
> Two questions:
>         • Do you know of online groups, communities, networks, or influencers who serve these groups of teens, and who might be possible partners for this kind of effort?
>         • Are there channels and forms of teen online participation that might be fruitful avenues for reaching vulnerable teens? For example, young women of color in college might form GroupMe or FB groups for social support, but I’m not certain if a similar practice exists at the high school level.
> 
> The project is U.S. focused but I’d be interested in examples from outside the U.S. as well. 
> 
> I would be super grateful for any suggestions and advice, including literature to read and general feedback. Thanks so much for considering.
> 
> Best,
> Mimi Ito
> Professor | UC Irvine @mizuko
> Director | Connected Learning Lab
> CEO | @connectedcamps
> http://www.itofisher.com/mito <http://www.itofisher.com/mito>
> 
> New Book!
> Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning <https://nyupress.org/9781479852758/affinity-online/ <https://nyupress.org/9781479852758/affinity-online/>>

Mimi Ito
Professor | UC Irvine @mizuko
Director | Connected Learning Lab
CEO | @connectedcamps
http://www.itofisher.com/mito

New Book!
Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning <https://nyupress.org/books/9781479852758/>