Session Information
31 ONLINE 25 B, Literacy as 21st-Century Skill: Empirical Elaboration on the Construct, Acquisition Contexts & Learning Tools in a Global Perspective
Symposium
MeetingID: 832 9014 6517 Code: Wc7p1h
Contribution
Given that most large-scale studies have predominantly focused on language disparities between migrant and non-migrant students regarding majority-language skills (mostly measured as reading comprehension), multiliterate skills of complex linguistic repertoires (reading and writing in the variety of languages) were not further considered. The current contribution aims to address the empirical construct of literacy as going beyond a single language. This complex view of literacy as multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) urged the development of new theoretical perspectives on multilingual writing as a synthesized competence, including all languages in a person’s repertoire, as dynamic and continuously evolving (Canagarajah, 2015). As of now, however, no research reveals the empirical construct of multiliteracies. Our study focuses specifically on multilingual reading and writing skills (i.e., actually measured reading and writing skills in the majority language, heritage language and foreign language taught at school) as the multilingual dimension of multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009). Our study “Multiliteracies as a Resource for the Labour Market. Social Conditions and Transformability into Economic Capital” (MARE) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research investigates multiliteracies as a multidimensional construct that involves both multilingual and multimodal literacy skills. In the current study, we conducted the empirical modeling of the complex construct of multilingual reading and writing in secondary students in Germany. We draw on data derived from the German panel study “Multilingual Development: A Longitudinal Perspective” (MEZ) on literacy skills of multilingual students (n = 2103) in three different languages: the majority language (German), heritage languages of migrants in Germany (Russian or Turkish) and the first foreign language all children learn at school (English). We analyze the dimensionality of multilingual reading and writing skills by conducting first and second-order confirmatory factor analyses. In the empirical model, we estimated literacy skills in German, English, and the heritage language as latent constructs. The empirical model addresses literacy skills in the individual languages as manifestations of multiliteracy. The results of our study provide evidence that multiliteracy is not a barrier to literacy skills in each of the languages and that fostering multiliteracies may drive the development of literacy skills in all languages in a multilingual repertoire.
References
Canagarajah, S. (2015). Clarifying the relationship between translingual practice and L2 writing: addressing learner identities. Applied Linguistics Review, 6(4), 415-440. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2015-0020 Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New Literacies, New Learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 164-195. doi:10.1080/15544800903076044. New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 60–92.
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