This session highlights the work of researchers who are exploring the language and literacy practices that youth and teachers are leveraging to forge civic identities across a variety of learning contexts. The studies examine how classrooms, media production and annotation platforms, and research-practice partnerships each present unique potential and tensions for ethnographers seeking to advocate for the development and enactment of critical consciousness in educational settings. The presenters discuss how they navigate their roles as co-constructors of knowledge with their research participants and attempt to document the overlapping influences on identity development in the face of systemic inequities