Propaganda in an Age of Algorithmic Personalization: Expanding Literacy Research and Practice

In this commentary, the author considers the rise of algorithmic personalization and the power of propaganda as they shift the dynamic landscape of 21st‐century literacy research and practice. Algorithmic personalization uses data from the behaviors, beliefs, interests, and emotions of the target audience to provide filtered digital content, targeted advertising, and differential product pricing to online users. As persuasive genres, advertising and propaganda may demand different types of reading practices than texts whose purpose is primarily informational or argumentative. Understanding the propaganda function of algorithmic personalization may lead to a deeper consideration of texts that activate emotion and tap into audience values for aesthetic, commercial, and political purposes. Increased attention to algorithmic personalization, propaganda, and persuasion in the context of K–12 literacy education may also help people cope with sponsored content, bots, and other forms of propaganda and persuasion that now circulate online

Friendships and Group Work in Linguistically Diverse Mathematics Classrooms: Opportunities to Learn for English Language Learners

This ethnographic study examined students’ opportunities to learn in linguistically diverse mathematics classrooms in a Canadian elementary school. I specifically examined the contextual change of group work, which influenced the opportunities to learn for newly arrived English language learners (ELLs). Based on analyses of videorecorded interactions, this study revealed a shift in these ELLs’ opportunities to learn from when they worked with teacher-assigned peers to when they worked with friends. In both settings, ELLs tended to be positioned as novices. However, when working with friends, they accessed a wider variety of work practices. In friend groups, ELLs were occasionally positioned as experts and had more opportunities to raise questions and offer ideas. In contrast, when working with teacher-assigned peers, ELLs tended to remain in the position of being helped. In some teacher-assigned groups, interactions were characterized as authoritative, and ELLs’ contributions and ideas were rejected or neglected without relevant justifications or mathematical authority established by their peers. The findings will contribute to ongoing discussions on group work and friendship in linguistically diverse classrooms.Ye