This communication presents a literature review carried for the national research
project: Living and learning with new literacies in and outside school: contributions
for reducing school drop-out, truancy and abandonment among youth (Spanish
Ministry of Science and Innovation - MICINN. EDU2011-24122). This research
takes place within the framework of the consolidated research group Contemporary
Subjectivities and Educational Environments – ESBRINA (2009SGR – 0503) of
the University of Barcelona, and builds on previous research projects, namely:
Rethinking school success and failure of secondary education from the relationship
of young people with knowledge (MICINN. EDU2008-03287. 2008-2011) and
Policy and Practice regarding ICT in Education: Implication for Educational
Innovation and Improvement (MICINN. SEJ2007-67562. 2007-2010).

In recent years, our research group has been using narrative inquiry to study the
relationship young people have with learning, both in and outside of secondary
school (See: Hernández, 2011). In the investigation we are embarking on now
(active for three years, during 2012-2014) we wish to further our understanding in
this area; one of our main research aims is to investigate the way young people
engage in learning outside the classroom, in order to transfer these strategies to
improved ways of teaching and learning in secondary schools.

With this aim in mind, our literature review asks: how have scholars studied the
relationship between young people’s learning in and outside school, and how has
this borderland been characterized? This literature review began in January 2012
and will be finished in December 2012.

Our presentation will describe the tensions emerging from the sources reviewed, in
relation to our research question, and we will offer a description of our preliminary
findings. Furthermore, we will discuss ‘where we will go from here’. In other words,
we will describe how this information has been received and assimilated into
the agenda of our nationally-funded research project. In September 2012 this
project will initiate fieldwork in 5 secondary schools in Catalonia. Our research
team will spend an academic year collaborating with students in the last year of
their compulsory education, with researchers acting as the tutors of students’ final
school projects. This fieldwork will also involve ongoing discussion with teachers,
as the study develops. Thus, our literature review will serve as an orientation for
our work, and it will situate our current project’s epistemological perspective and
methodological approach within a broader research context.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.). (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. New York: Routledge. Hernández, F. (Ed.) (2011). Investigar con los jóvenes: cuestiones temáticas, metodológicas, éticas y educativas. Barcelona: Dipòsit digital de la Universitat de Barcelona. http://hdl.handle.net/2445/17362 Howe, N., & Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. New York: Vintage Original. Ito, M., et al. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kalantzis, M., Cope, B., and the Learning by Design Project Group. (2005). Learning by Design. Victorian Schools Innovation Commission: Melbourne. Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Lankshear, C.; Knobel, M. (2008). New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning. New York: McGraw-Hill. NO ES 2003? Patel Stevens, L. (2005). “Youth, Adults and Literacies. Texting Subjectivities Within and Outside Schooling”. In J. Vadeboncoeur, & L. Patel Stevens (Eds.), Re/Constructing the ‘Adolescent’: Sign, symbol, and body (pp. 49-68). New York: Peter Lang. Oblinger, D., and Oblinger, J. L. (Eds.). (2005). Educating the Net Generation. Washington: Educause. Rudduck, J. and Flutter, J. (2007). Cómo mejorar tu centro escolar dando la voz al alumnado. Ediciones Morata. Sancho, J. M. (2009). “Digital Technologies and Educational Change”. In A. Hargreaves, M. Fullan, A. Lieberman y D. Hopkings (Eds.), International Handbook of Educational Change (pp. 433-444). Dordrecht; Boston; London: Springer. Sefton-Green, J. (2004). Literature Review in Informal Learning with Technology Outside School. Futurelab: UK. Retrieved on 30.01.2012 from: archive.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/lit_reviews/Informal_Learning_Review.pdf Sharpe, R.; Beetham, H.; de Freitas, S. (2010)  Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age. How Learners are Shaping their Own Experiences. Routledge.