4 E D U C AT I O N C A N A D A I C A N A D I A N E D U C A T I O N A S S O C I A T I O N

MULTILITERACIESAND EQUITYHOW DO CANADIAN SCHOOLSMEASURE UP?JIM CUMMINS

TO WHAT EXTENT HAVE CANADIAN SCHOOLS INCORPORATED NOTIONS OF

MULTILITERACIES INTO THEIR CURRICULA AND INSTRUCTION? WHAT PEDAGOGICAL

OPTIONS ARE IMPLIED BY A MULTILITERACIES PERSPECTIVE?

THE CHANGING FACE OF LITERACY IS IMMEDIATELY EVIDENT AS WE STROLLthrough the streets of Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver. In Toronto, for example,we see street signs and store fronts in many different languages in addition toEnglish. We hear multiple languages on the subway, in the streets, and even inthe media. For a large proportion of the population, “literacy” means more thanjust literacy in English; letters and emails are being exchanged in multiple lan-guages, web pages in multiple languages are being consulted and created, andvideos and music from around the world entertain an increasing proportion ofthe population.

The expansion of what we mean by “literacy” goes beyond its multilingualrepresentations. The impact of new information and communication technolo-gies is clearly evident in the streetscapes of major cities. We see people negoti-ating bank machines, chatting or text messaging on cell phones, taking digitalphotographs or browsing the world wide web with these same cell phones, orconducting business on their hand-held Blackberry devices. When we shop, ourpurchases are much more likely to be scanned and automatically compiled thanentered manually into a cash register. We pass people plugged into their MP3players, listening to music that they have probably downloaded from Internetsites for free, much to the consternation of the recording industry.

In recent years, these multiple forms of literacy practices have spawned anaddition to the English lexicon. The term multiliteracies was introduced in themid-1990s by a group of Australian, North American, and European academicsto capture expanding notions of literacy and to inquire into their relevance foreducation. The group met originally in New London, New Hampshire and self-titled themselves the New London Group. Their article “A Pedagogy of Multilit-eracies: Designing Social Futures” published in the Harvard Educational Review inSpring 1996,1 aimed to articulate an orientation to literacy education that tookaccount of the rapidly increasing cultural and linguistic diversity within westerneducation systems and the many new forms of technology that are transform-ing literacy practices in our global societies. According to the New London

Group, if literacy pedagogy is to be effective, it must takeaccount of, and build on, the multilingual competenciesthat students bring to school and also expand the traditionaldefinitions of literacy beyond the linear text-based readingand writing of western schooling.

To what extent have Canadian schools incorporatednotions of multiliteracies into their curricula and instruc-tion? What pedagogical options are implied by a multilit-eracies perspective? How might consideration of multilit-eracies affect policies and practices at various levels of theeducational system – ministries of education, faculties ofeducation, school boards, schools, preschools? How doesconsideration of multiliteracies intersect with equity issues?

My intent in this article is to raise these questions, pointto gaps in the way we are thinking about literacy in Cana-dian education today, and sketch some potentially fruitfuldirections for addressing these gaps. I draw on case studiesthat we have been conducting in partnership with educa-tors across Canada in the context of a Canada-wide projectentitled From Literacy to Multiliteracies: Designing Learn-ing Environments for Knowledge Generation within theNew Economy.2 The core argument is that the absence ofcoherent policies within schools in relation to the increas-ing linguistic and cultural diversity of the student bodyrisks compromising principles of equity to which all Cana-dian schools are committed. In exploring pedagogicaloptions that build on and extend the cultural and linguisticcapital that students bring to school, technology offerspowerful tools to engage students more actively with liter-acy and to promote overall academic development.

C A N A D I A N E D U C A T I O N A S S O C I A T I O N I E D U C AT I O N C A N A D A 5

MULTILITERACIES AND CANADIAN SCHOOLS:A REALITY CHECKTechnologyLiteracy as it is taught and tested in our schools is still con-ceived as linear, text-based reading and writing skills. Theseare the skills tested in high school graduation examinationsor literacy tests (such as Ontario’s Grade 10 Literacy Test).Certainly, some excellent Media Studies courses and guide-lines have been developed (e.g. Toronto District School Board,2005),3 but we are at the very early stages of integrating amultimedia focus across the curriculum or inquiring intothe relationships between technology and pedagogy.

There is a stark contrast between students’ access to anduse of computers at home and at school. In Ontario, forexample, according to the Education Quality and Account-ability Office (EQAO)4, 96 percent of grade 10 studentshave a computer at home, and they are involved in a widevariety of literacy practices related to technology, fromsharing music files to instant messaging on cell phones, toMSN chat groups. However, school principals have identi-fied many significant financial and technical challenges tousing computers effectively in schools.5 Despite muchgreater potential access to computers at school in recentyears as a result of significant investment in educationaltechnology, only a relatively small fraction of students usecomputers regularly at school for meaningful or substan-tive academic work. Students typically still have only spo-radic access to computers and other forms of new tech-nologies within schools, and when they do gain access, it isoften not clear either to them or to their teachers what

they should be doing with these technologies.6 For exam-ple, is technology being used effectively when the highschool French teacher brings her students to the computerlaboratory to practice computerized grammar exercises for45 minutes? Does the computer bring any added pedagog-ical value to this activity beyond the traditional worksheet?

In short, while examples of imaginative and powerfulpractices certainly exist, the overall picture suggests thattechnology use in Canadian schools is sporadic and uncon-nected to coherent pedagogical philosophies and practices.There has been minimal discussion of what forms of pedagogy are required to maximize the potential of newtechnologies.

Linguistic DiversityA similar policy vacuum exists with respect to the pedagog-ical implications of linguistic diversity. Home languagesother than English or French are viewed as largely irrele-vant to children’s schooling. At best, they are treated withbenign neglect and ignored; at worst, educators considerthem an obstacle to the acquisition of English or Frenchand discourage their use in school and at home. While“multiculturalism” is generally endorsed as a guiding prin-ciple for promoting tolerance and non-discrimination, veryfew ministries of education or school systems have gener-ated policies that articulate the intersections between“multiculturalism” and linguistic diversity and explore whatthis might mean for pedagogy.

The absence of serious policy consideration to addresslinguistic diversity at all levels of the educational systemhas resulted in the “normalization” of some highly prob-lematic assumptions and practices that risk compromisingCanadian schools’ commitment to equity. These problem-atic assumptions include:•Provision of instructional support for English language

learners (ELL) is the job of the ESL teacher;•“Literacy” refers only to English literacy;•The cultural knowledge and home language proficiency

that ELL students bring to school have little instructionalrelevance.

The assumption that only ESL teachers are responsiblefor ESL support is clearly problematic in view of (a) thetimelines required for ELL students to catch up academical-ly, and (b) the fact that even beginning ELL students arelikely to spend only one or two periods per day with the ESLteacher, while the rest of the time is spent in the main-stream classroom.

EN BREF Même si le multiculturalisme est généralement reconnu commel’une des valeurs de base des écoles canadiennes, on s’est peu intéressé àce que cela pouvait signifier sur le plan pédagogique. En s’appuyant sur desétudes de cas, le projet des « multilittératies » (www.multiliteracies.ca) arepéré diverses façons de faire de la diversité culturelle une ressource sco-laire et de remettre ainsi en question les pratiques et suppositions actuellesqui menacent notre engagement envers l’équité. Selon Cummins, il arrivetrop souvent que les élèves éprouvent des remords ou se sentent inadéquatsparce qu’ils ne maîtrisent pas suffisamment la langue dominante. Les écolesdoivent se demander dans quelle mesure leurs politiques et pratiques lin-guistiques leur permette de profiter du capital culturel et linguistique que lesélèves possèdent déjà dans leur langue maternelle et aussi dans quellemesure ces politiques et pratiques les aident à promouvoir l’utilisation detechnologies pour soutenir leur engagement à l’égard de la littératie.

home language is replaced by thedominant language, occurs rapidly(within a few years), particularly forstudents born in Canada or whoarrive at an early age prior to thedevelopment of literacy in their homelanguage. This language replacementprocess represents a loss of opportu-

nity and linguistic capital for the individual child, a squan-dering of linguistic resources that are highly valuable with-in a globalized economy for the country as a whole, andfrequently an interruption of communication and culturaltransmission within the family. In many cases, children nolonger have a language in common with their parents andgrandparents.11

DIVERSITY AS A RESOURCE WITHIN SCHOOLSThe following scenario, drawn from one of the Multilitera-cies project case studies (www.multiliteracies.ca) reflectsan alternative set of assumptions and practices in relationto linguistic diversity and its potential as a resource in chil-dren’s learning:

Several months after arriving in Canada from Pakistan,Madiha, a Grade 7 student in Michael Cranny Public Schoolof the York Region District School Board, coauthored withher friends Kanta and Sulmana a 20-page English-Urdudual language book titled The New Country. The book tellsabout “how hard it was to leave our country and come to anew country.” Kanta and Sulmana were reasonably fluentin English because they had arrived in Toronto several yearsbefore, in Grade 4. Madiha, however, was in the very earlystages of English language acquisition. The book was pub-lished in the classroom and uploaded to the project website where it could be viewed by parents, community mem-bers, and, in principle, even by relatives in the country oforigin. The publication of the book on the World WideWeb amplified the affirmation that its writing and publica-tion represented for the students and their families.

In a “normal” classroom, Madiha’s minimal knowledgeof English would have severely limited her ability to partic-ipate in a Grade 7 social studies unit. She certainly wouldnot have been in a position to communicate extensively inEnglish about her experiences, ideas, and insights. Howev-er, when the social structure of the classroom changed insimple ways as a result of the initiative of the teacher (LisaLeoni), Madiha’s home language, in which all her experi-ence prior to immigration was encoded, became onceagain a tool for learning. She contributed her ideas andexperiences to the story, participated in discussions abouthow to translate vocabulary and expressions from Urdu toEnglish and from English to Urdu, and shared in the affir-mation that all three students experienced when they pub-lished their story.

This example is one of many depicted in the Multilit-eracies web site and the web site of the Dual LanguageShowcase of Thornwood elementary school in the PeelBoard of Education (http://thornwood.peelschools.org/Dual/). The assumptions about literacy, and by implicationwhat constitutes equitable pedagogy, are very differentfrom those that have become normalized within manyCanadian schools. Two of these assumptions can be high-lighted:

A number of research studies have shown that very dif-ferent time periods are required for ELL students to catchup to their peers in different dimensions of English profi-ciency. Specifically, it usually takes only one to two years forstudents to become reasonably fluent in conversationalEnglish. About two years is also typically required for manystudents in the early grades to acquire basic decoding skillsin English to a level similar to that of their English-speakingclassmates.7 However, ELL students typically require at leastfive years to catch up to native English speakers in academicEnglish.8

How well prepared are classroom teachers in elemen-tary and secondary schools to support ELL students duringthe five or so years they are catching up academically?Issues related to teaching ELL students are rarely addressedin teacher education programs or in professional develop-ment for “mainstream” teachers, and thus the quality ofsupport is likely to depend on the expertise that teachershave “picked up” on the job. Needless to say, this is likely tovary considerably. In an education context characterized bylinguistic diversity and high rates of immigration, it is nolonger sufficient to be an excellent science teacher or mathteacher in a generic sense; excellence must be defined byhow well a teacher can teach science or math to the stu-dents who are in his or her classroom, many of whom maybe in the early or intermediate stages of English languageacquisition. Few schools have articulated school-based lan-guage policies that explicitly address the role of all teachersin supporting ELL students’ academic development, notjust in the early stages of acquisition, but throughout theentire “catch up” process. The fact that many teachers inour schools lack the knowledge base and qualifications toteach ELL students has obvious implications for equity.9

The assumptions that “literacy” refers only to literacy inthe dominant language and that students’ first languageproficiency is irrelevant to their educational progress alsolead to problematic consequences. In the first place, these

assumptions are inconsistent with the central roleassigned by cognitive psychologists to stu-dents’ prior knowledge in the entire learningprocess. Donovan and Bransford, for example,point out that “new understandings are con-structed on a foundation of existing understand-ings and experiences” (emphasis original).10 IfELL students’ prior knowledge is encoded intheir home languages, then these languagesare relevant to their learning of English andacademic content.

A second problematic aspect of theseassumptions is that students frequently internalize

a sense of shame in relation to their home language andculture. English (or French in Quebec) becomes the lan-guage of belonging and acceptance within the institutionof the school (or preschool). Language loss, where the

HOME LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH OR FRENCH ARE VIEWED AS LARGELY

IRRELEVANT TO CHILDREN’S SCHOOLING. AT BEST, THEY ARE TREATED WITH BENIGN

NEGLECT AND IGNORED; AT WORST, EDUCATORS CONSIDER THEM AN OBSTACLE TO THE

ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH OR FRENCH AND DISCOURAGE THEIR USE IN SCHOOL AND AT HOME.

6 E D U C AT I O N C A N A D A I C A N A D I A N E D U C A T I O N A S S O C I A T I O N

Notes

1 New London Group, “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures,” Harvard Educational

Review 66 (1996): 60-92.

2 M. Early, J. Cummins and D. Willinsky, From Literacy to Multiliteracies: Designing Learning Environ-

ments for Knowledge Generation Within the New Economy. Proposal funded by the Social Sciences

and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2002.

3 Media studies K-12 (Toronto: Toronto District School Board, 2005).

4 Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test: Report

of Provincial Results, English-language Schools (Toronto: EQAO, 2005).

5 J. Plante and D. Beattie, Connectivity and ICT Integration in Canadian Elementary and Secondary

Schools: First Results from the Information and Communications Technologies in Schools Survey, 2003-

2004 (Catalogue no. 81-595-MIE — No. 017. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2004).

6 L. Cuban, Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 2001).

7 e.g. E. Geva, “Issues in the Assessment of Reading Disabilities in L2 Children—Beliefs and Research

Evidence,” Dyslexia 6 (2000): 13-28.; N. K. Lesaux and L. S. Siegel, “The Development of Reading in

Children Who Speak English as a Second Language,” Developmental Psychology 39, no. 6 (2003):

1005–1019.

8 J. Cummins, “Age on Arrival and Immigrant Second Language Learning in Canada: A Reassess-

ment,” Applied Linguistics 1 (1981): 132-149.; H. Klesmer, “Assessment and Teacher Perceptions of

ESL Student Achievement, English Quarterly 26, no. 3 (1994): 8-11.; C. Worswick, School Performance

of the Children of Immigrants in Canada, 1994-98 ( No. 178; ISBN: 0-662-31229-5; Ottawa: Statistics

Canada, 2001).

9 E. Coelho, Adding English: A Guide to Teaching in Multilingual Classrooms (Toronto: Pippin Publish-

ing, 2004).

10 (M. S. Donovan and J. D. Bransford (eds.), How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in

the Classroom (Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 2005), 4.

11 J. Cummins, “The Development of Bilingual Proficiency from Home to School: A Longitudinal Study of

Portuguese-speaking Children,” Journal of Education 173 (1991): 85-98.; L. Wong Fillmore, “Loss of

Family Language: Should Educators be Concerned?” Theory Into Practice 39, no. 4 (2000): 203-210.

IN AN EDUCATION CONTEXT CHARACTERIZED BY LINGUISTIC

DIVERSITY, IT IS NO LONGER SUFFICIENT TO BE AN EXCELLENT

SCIENCE TEACHER OR MATH TEACHER IN A GENERIC SENSE; EXCEL-

LENCE MUST BE DEFINED BY HOW WELL A TEACHER CAN TEACH

SCIENCE OR MATH TO THE STUDENTS WHO MAY BE IN THE EARLY

OR INTERMEDIATE STAGES OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.

C A N A D I A N E D U C A T I O N A S S O C I A T I O N I E D U C AT I O N C A N A D A 7

•ELL students’ cultural knowledge and language abilities areimportant resources in enabling academic engagement;

•ELL students will engage academically to the extent thatinstruction affirms their identities and enables them toinvest their identities in learning.

Based on the case studies that school-based and univer-sity-based researchers have conducted together within theMultiliteracies project, we can articulate a set of questionsthat might stimulate discussion of language policies andbelief systems at multiple levels of the educational system(e.g. ministries of education, preschool/child care provi-sion, public schools, teacher education programs, princi-pals’ courses):•What image of the student is constructed by the (implic-

it or explicit) language or literacy policy of the school? •Do our language and literacy practices construct an image

of the student as intelligent, imaginative, and linguisticallytalented?

•Does our pedagogy acknowledge and build on the cultur-al and linguistic capital (prior knowledge) of students andcommunities?

•What messages are we sending, intentionally or inadver-tently, to students and communities about the value oftheir home language and culture?

•To what extent are we enabling all students to engagecognitively and invest their identities in learning?

•How can we harness technology to amplify student voiceand promote sustained literacy engagement?

These questions all connect with the concept of multi-literacies and its implications for pedagogy. Thus, this con-cept potentially represents a useful catalyst for revisitingliteracy policies and leadership assumptions in Canadianschools. Unfortunately, at the present time, these questionsare rarely asked in the context of school leadership andeducational policy generally. We assume that what is goodfor the imagined “generic” white, monolingual, monocul-tural, middle-class student is good for all students. Perhapswe assume too much. I

JIM CUMMINS teaches in the Department of Curriculum,Teaching, and Learning of the Ontario Institute for Studiesin Education of the University of Toronto. His researchfocuses on literacy in culturally and linguistically diversecontexts.