Study Circle Overview
Our Communicative Justice and Data Literacy Study Circles
An important goal of the Communicative Justice Initiative is to support adult educators, particularly those working in community-based settings with linguistically minoritized adult learners, to bring data storytelling alive in their own classrooms. We recognize that adult educators need creative spaces to shape their own communicative justice goals, explore ideas for data literacy teaching and learning, and problem-solve with others. We designed the Communicative Justice and Data Literacy Study Circle to meet these needs.
Why a study circle?
We chose the Study Circle format because we wanted to engage in deep conversations with adult educators from different settings and also from other parts of the country– and the world. These study circles are not curriculum committees, not technical working groups. They are opportunities to reflect on the meaning of data literacy and stretch our imagination about what communicative justice can look like in our classrooms and the communities where our learners live and work.
About our pilot study circle
In our first study circle (December 2022 to May 2023), we recruited a group of 12 adult educators from across the U.S. who work with immigrant communities. Together we explored the concept of communicative justice and implications of data literacy in adult education broadly and in their individual classrooms. The teachers were seasoned practitioners with deep experience and expertise working with adult English language learners in diverse contexts. The study circle was led by María Bastías, an educator based in the Bay Area of California and one of the co-founders of the Communicative Justice Initiative.
Over 5 months, the groups exchanged ideas for designing and piloting reusable classroom activities that aimed to advance communicative justice. Here is a sampler of themes, questions, and resources we explored over the course of the study circle.
data fears, speaking data, playing with data, data storytelling, data in healthcare, myth-busting with data, data resilience, and data for community action.
What we learned from our pilot study circle
Teacher Reflections
At the conclusion of the Study Circle, we had an opportunity to interview each of the participants. In these interviews, teachers emphasized how important it was for them to connect with other educators and program directors to share ideas and concerns about data literacy and communicative justice in adult classrooms. They pointed out that having the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with peers was essential for their willingness to try implementing the Communicative Justice framework and, most importantly, reflecting on implementation to make changes. They expressed that they felt inspired by each other's ideas and work, which made them more likely to think about new ways to bring data literacy into their programs and classrooms.
To read more about the teachers’ reflections, download this report.
Facilitator Reflections
“Working with data in adult classrooms has provided me with new insights about our understanding of how multilingual speakers’ perspectives, cultures, and language are connected to data interpretation and use. I was eager to engage in meaningful conversations with other educators who were interested in empowering communities that have been pushed aside, forgotten, taken advantage of.
I think that the biggest challenge for data literacy and data science education are opportunities for professional development. There is trauma connected to these areas, and learners and educators may be hesitant to experiment and learn - to dare to play with data. I am convinced that big changes happen in classrooms. We can have excellent policies, but we need educators and learners to bring them to life.
This pivotal point in history motivated me to learn more about how the Communicative Justice Learner Leadership framework, and how our findings, experiences, challenges and opportunities could be extrapolated to other settings. I needed to learn from others, too. I see that democratizing data literacy — this means bringing data education into classrooms, making it accessible for learners of all ages, genders, and socioeconomic status — has the potential to change exclusionary narratives. In my opinion data literacy is about social justice.”
-María José Bastías
To read more of María José’s reflections, please download this report.
You can find more information about study circles through the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL): Study Circle Guide