In between Work and School: Youth Perspectives of an Urban Afterschool Multimedia Literacy Program

In recent years, afterschool programs have come to be envisioned as sites for addressing the failure of urban schools to provide adolescents with the requisite skills and knowledge to participate in a rapidly shifting social, political, and economic landscape. The purpose and nature of such educational endeavors has taken many varied forms, as a growing number of stakeholders become invested in shaping the direction and implementation of afterschool programming. However, youth, as the recipients of these programs, have rarely been looked to as sources of experiential knowledge about the potential roles of afterschool programs in their personal development and academic education. Drawing on data from a yearlong ethnographic project documenting a media arts program housed in an urban comprehensive high school, this article foregrounds youth perspectives on their experience in an afterschool program, addressing in particular the ways in which this arts-based program functioned as a hybrid space between work and school. An investigation of youth perspectives invites us to rethink the potential of such educational spaces to enhance the learning of students who are most often marginalized in traditional school settings. It also raises important questions about knowledge production, skill development, and youth empowerment in afterschool programming.