Session Information
07 ONLINE 40 B, Co-Constructions in Participatory and Practice-Based Research and in Social Media for Equity in Education
Paper Session
MeetingID: 895 6064 9797 Code: N9aUTV
Contribution
This paper draws on an ongoing and practice oriented Swedish research project, carried out during 2020-22 in collaboration with school-leaders, teachers, and students in a culturally and linguistically diverse school context, characterized of high socioeconomic index[1] (SOU 2020:46). The overall purpose of the research project is to identify and develop knowledge about teaching processes, which enhances the quality and the equality of the classroom practices.
The research study is carried out in three interventions in which teachers design and organise classroom activities, drawing on and relating to multilingual students’ various experiences, languages, knowledges, and contexts (e.g., Cummins, 2001; Garcia & Wei, 2014).
Theoretically, the research project draws on theoretical perspectives of translanguaging (Garcia & Kleifgen, 2019; Garcia & Wei, 2014), multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996), and the Four Resources Literacy Model (Luke & Freebody, 1997). Drawing on preliminary data from the three interventions, the aim of this paper is to investigate if and in what ways these epistemological perspectives impact the designed classroom practices. Following research questions will be addressed:
- What characterize the designed classroom practices?
- What resources among the students are drawn upon and in what ways?
Epistemologically, the theories framing this study put emphasis on children as autonomous agents, meaning that they can take own initiatives, act, and contribute to changes in society. To provide equal opportunities for young students to communicate, learn and practice citizenship, classroom pedagogies must allow students to make use of all their available resources, including all their languages. Drawing on translanguaging perspectives (Garcia & Klefgen, 2019; Garcia & Wei, 2014) this implies to acknowledge multilingual students’ full linguistic repertoires. This can be mirrored in Garcia’s (2009) concept of dynamic multilingualism, which refers to that all multilingual speakers’ language interactions as well as other linguistic interrelationships are intertwined with one another on different scales and spaces. Further, the definition of multiliteracies highlights the wide range of linguistic, multimodal, cultural and communicative resources that people bring into social practices of today, with the overall goal of increased access to cultural and linguistic diversity (Heath, 1983; New London Group, 1996; Schmidt & Häggström, 2018). Thus, to recognize and draw on the multiplicity of students’ literacy experiences and identities in classroom practices, potentially increase their access to the various communicative abilities and strategies which are used in present, and diverse cultural, linguistic, and social contexts. In similar ways, Luke and Freebody’s (1997) reflects this idea of pluralistic communicative resources in contemporary societies, arguing that effective literacy learning needs to include students’ various resources within practices integrating coding, functional use, meaning making and critical analysis of texts. However, Janks (2010) argues that taking aspects of students’ resources seriously, may cause contradictions in relation to the dominant culture and language within a certain context or society. This possible contradiction is named by Janks as the ‘access paradox’. While providing students access to the dominant culture and language, classroom practices will contribute to perpetuating and increasing its dominance. If on the other hand, classroom practices result in limiting and not recognizing students’ available resources, this will lead to a continuous marginalisation of this group of students.
[1] High socioeconomic index refers to unfavorable conditions, such as lower income, lower educational levels, unemployment and/or disadvantaged housing conditions.
Method
The ongoing project involves all teachers and their students, aged 6-12, at one school, and in collaboration with the principal, two researchers and representatives from a school development department at the local authorities. Through the three interventions, all teachers have over time developed the design of their classroom teaching and learning, in line with the above outlined theoretical perspectives (Garcia & Wei, 2014; Garcia & Klefgen, 2019; Luke & Freebody, 1997; New London Group, 1996). After each intervention, the teachers have described their designed teaching and its outcomes together with their pedagogical reflections in online logbooks. Moreover, the data consists of transcribed focus group interviews with in total 12 students (grade 3 and 6) and 15 teachers, and 10 hours of classroom video observations from intervention 1 and 3. The analysis of the empirical data is still ongoing. Presently, the analysis of the interviews and the online logbooks is carried out through a content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005), while the video observations of classroom practice are analyzed in relation to the teaching factors of organization and the possible pedagogical communication and interaction (Alexander, 2008). The aim is to investigate in what ways the epistemological perspectives have an impact on the classroom practices in the three interventions, drawing on both interviews, video observations and the online logbooks.
Expected Outcomes
The preliminary findings shed light on pedagogical approaches which are highlighting the students’ use of all their languages. Commonly, such classroom practices are initiated by the teachers, through pre-planned instructions where the students are explicitly prompted to use their mother tongues, which in few cases are the Swedish language, orally or in written form. One example is the organising of interaction and communication through homogenous language groups. In the analysis, it becomes evident that this creates a space where students are invited to process subject content with peers in their mother tongue. However, the students frequently also use multilingual strategies spontaneously on other occasions in the classroom practice. Also, several examples of multimodal communication and reinforcement are found in the analysed data. For example, teachers use video clips from YouTube or other digital resources where students can find subject content presented in different languages, and in combination with visual information. Multimodal expressions are also used by the students to creatively present knowledge in various ways. Preliminary findings also shed light on pedagogical approaches, highlighting students’ various experiences, identities, and social worlds. The teachers emphasize that they want to pay attention to and acknowledge their students’ experiences social worlds. Among the teachers it is made clear that students’ language flexibility is considered an important tool for enhancing identity, self-esteem, learning and knowledge development in the classrooms. Examples of activities that particularly aim to enhance students’ identities and social worlds are also found in the analysis. One example is the often-used approach of involving the student’s parents as providers of knowledge and of being able to contribute to their children’s learning. The result of this paper could renew discussion about classroom pedagogy in culturally and linguistically diverse school contexts.
References
Alexander, R. (2008). Essays on pedagogy. Routledge. Cummins, J. (2001). Bilingual children’s mother tongue: Why is it important for education? Sprogforum, 7(19), 15-20. Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden: Blackwell Publ. García, O. & Klefgen, J. O. (2019. Translanguaging and literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 55 (44), 553-571. Garcia, O. & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging, language, bilingualism and education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Janks, H. (2010). Literacy and power. Routledge. Heath, B. S. (1983). Ways with words. Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hsieh, H., & Shannon, S. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative health research, 15(9), 1277-1288. Luke, A. & Freebody, P. (1997). The social practices of reading. In S. Muspratt, A. Luke and P. Freebody, eds: Constructing critical literacies: Teaching and learning textual practices, p. 195-225. Cresskill: Hampton Press New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies. Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92. Schmidt, C. & Häggström, M. (2019). Literacy and Multimodality in Swedish Teacher Education: Understanding and Bringing Together Theory and Practice. Utbildning & Lärande, 13(19), p. 7-23.
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