Unschooling media : participatory practices among progressive homeschoolers

Introduction: Rehoboth, the name of my hometown in southern Massachusetts, comes from the Hebrew work for "crossroads." Indeed there's not much in this rural town besides Route 44 and Route 118, with smatterings of horse farms and single-family homes. These two blue highways intersect at the town's only stoplight. A sign stands at this intersection at the center of town, in front of the Cumberland Farms convenience store, across the street from the new Dunkin Donuts. It reads: Rehoboth, MA: Birthplace of Public Education in North America. I'm a product of these schools, but in this thesis I explore the road not often traveled in education: unschooling, a type of homeschooling with unstructured, child-directed learning. Through an examination of the attitudes, beliefs and practices related to media and technology in the unschooling subculture, I come to a definition of participatory media.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Comparative Media Studies.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Bertozzi, Vanessa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Henry Jenkins, III.

• Comparative Media Studies.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39199

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39199