Publications

Bailin Wells, E. (2021). Counter-narratives of girlhood: Interrogating the ruptures, complexities and challenges of “being a girl” at an elite, independent private all-girls school in New York City. In D. Beichner & E. Mikulec (Eds.). Distraction: Girls, School and Sexuality.

Read here.

Bailin Wells, E. (2019). Hip-hop education. In R. Hobbs & P. Mihailidis (Eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy Education.

Read here.

Bailin Wells, E. (2018). Un/tangling girlhood: Negotiations of identity, literacy, and place at an elite, independent private all-girls school in New York City. Columbia University Academic Commons.

Read here.

Bailin, E. (2014). Review: Slam school: Learning through conflict in the hip-hop and spoken word classroom (2011). Journal of Media Literacy Education, 6(1), 56-59.

Hobbs, R., Cipollone, M., Bailin, E., Moore, D.C. & Schlesinger, M. (2011, June). Young Audiences and New Authors in a Multimedia Landscape. Philadelphia: Temple University.

Abstract: All-girls schools are commonly framed as institutions meant to empower girls to be their best selves in an enriching environment that fosters learning, compassion, and success. In elite, private schools, notions of language, privilege, and place are often tethered to the school’s history and traditions in ways that are seamlessly woven into the cultural fabric of the institution, subsequently informing particular constructions of students. Therefore, a closer examination of the dialogic power of belonging and expectations between an institution and its members is required. Failure to interrogate language and power dynamics in privileged spaces can perpetuate systems and structures of exclusivity and prohibit the construction of authentically inclusive practices and place-making within educational institutions.

This study, which took place at an elite, independent, private all-girls school (the Clyde School) on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, interrogates how ideations of girls and girlhood are constructed and promoted as part of a school’s institutional identity and, in turn, how members of the institution understand, negotiate, and reimagine ideals, expectations, and forms of membership within the Clyde School. Drawing on literature from sociocultural, sociolinguistic, and communications perspectives, and concepts of literacy, identity, and place as constructed, situated and practiced, this study highlights the importance of context and discourse when examining how young people understand themselves, others, and their socially-situated realities.

Data collection included semi-structured interviews, multimodal media-making, and participant observations. The primary method of data analysis was a critical analysis of discourse—an examination of the language, beliefs, values, and practices that collectively work to construct a school’s institutional identity; and foster insight into how students perceive and challenge notions of what it means to be a student at the Clyde School. The findings of this case study offer analyses of individual, collective, and institutional identity/ies. It considers the discursive practices, critical literacies, and place-making processes that young people use to navigate and negotiate their experiences in a particular sociocultural ecology. This study contributes to understandings of girlhood, youth studies, and elite, private independent school settings and provokes further questions about the possibilities of disrupting storylines and re-storying pedagogies.

Download Emily's dissertation here.

In June 2017, the National Association of Media Literacy Education, The Alliance for Media Arts + Culture, and 14 Black Poppies convened over 60 emerging artists/filmmakers, students, educators, librarians, and organizers at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, for an intergenerational conversation on civic participation and media literacy.

This case study, Collective Dreams + Desires, generated from the Pre-Conference Workshop on Civic Participation and Media Literacy at the 2017 NAMLE Conference, is a meditation on the affordances of intentional creation of spaces and intergenerational dialogue around civic participation and media literacy. It is an academic, poetic, and visual report of that conversation and reveals three crucial insights: (1) We need more spaces/places that cultivate imagination and dreaming. (2) We need intergenerational approaches that facilitate equity between/among generations. (3) We need to honor both the whole person and the whole organization in order to deepen our collective impact.

The report is authored by Celi Tamayo-Lee, Dr. Emily Bailin Wells, and Jason Wyman along with all of the people who participated in the conversation.

Click here to download the full report.