Jim Cummins

University of Toronto
Canada

Monday, August 25


The Role of Multiliteracies Pedagogy as a Conceptual Framework for Reversing Educational Underachievement among Minority Group Students

Abstract:

The international comparisons carried out through the OECD’s Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) project have provided policy-makers with a snapshot of the educational achievement of first and second generation immigrant students in countries around the world (Stanat & Christensen, 2006). Major variation is evident across countries in the school performance of different groups. Previous research within countries has also shown considerable inter-group variation. This presentation will examine the pattern of results both from the PISA data and other studies that have been carried out during the past 20 years in order to (a) establish the phenomena that require explanation, (b) articulate theoretic cal models that are capable of explaining the data, and (c) critically examine the policy implications of the research and theory relating to immigrant and minority group school performance.

The presentation will argue that societal power relations, and their manifestation within the school through patterns of identity negotiation, are an integral component of any adequate explanatory model. The policy implicate one of this position will be contrasted with those articulated by the Transatlantic Task Force on Immigration and Integration (2007) on the basis of the PISA data. As outlined in the quotation below, the Task Force focused primarily on linguistic explanatory factors and corresponding linguistic interventions implemented exclusively in the majority language of the society as the foundation for policy designed to improve minority students’ academic achievement. Excluded from considerate on were sociological/sociopolitical determinants of minority students’ academic difficulties and the kinds of interventions that would address these causal factors:

 The reports recommend that lawmakers focus on policies that bring children of immigrants into the education system by the age of three, immerse them in the language of their host countries, provide language support through both primary and secondary school within a clear framework, and afford more flexibility to move between academic and vocational education. (http://www.migrationinformation.org/transatlantic)

Drawing on research conducted with minority group students in a variety of sociolinguistic contexts, the presentation will argue that multi literacies pedagogy provides a more adequate framework for addressing underachievement among minority groups than interventions that focus only on students’ presumed deficits in the dominant societal language.

See recording of the keynote