Cultural and Linguistic Pluralism in School Programs and Pedagogy Through a Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogies Framework

• In Event: Educational Agency and Transformation: Enacting Pathways for Empowerment With Latino Educators and Youth

Abstract

This study examines the instructional programs and the pedagogy for Latino English learners through the lens of the Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogies framework (Cummins, 2009). The majority of English learners in California schools are Spanish speaking Latinos (Cosentino De Cohen & Clewell, 2007; Ed-Data, 2010). Over the last decade, schools have continued to educate English learners through a deficit-based, skills focused instructional approach, thus limiting them to learn in their primary language, develop English while learning content, and incorporate language and culture as an important component of the learning environment (Gándara, 1997; Gándara, Rumberger, & Maxwell-Jolly, 2008: Gándara et al., 2003; Gonzalez, 2010). English learners have been transitioned into mainstream English classrooms as fast as possible to build English proficiency (Crawford, 2003; Gándara & Rumberger, 2002, 2007; Gonzalez, 2010; Kerper-Mora, 2000; Parrish, 2006), which has compromised the potential for providing students access towards a an engaging, rigorous, and empowering education that builds on multiple language abilities, involves students’ cultural strengths, and incorporates rich content knowledge (Gay, 2000; Nieto, 2001, 2002; Sleeter, 2005).

Cummins (2009) articulates the Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogy (TMP) framework that allows for the analysis of the pedagogical approaches and how societal power relations impact the achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The TMP framework presents three pedagogies with key components for student engagement and cognitive learning that may create conditions of empowerment for culturally and linguistically diverse students: transmission, social constructivist, and transformative. The transmission pedagogy has a narrow focus with a goal to transmit information and skills directly to students. The social constructivist pedagogy acknowledges the significance of transmission and skills but includes a focus of developing higher-order thinking abilities where teachers and students construct knowledge and understanding. The transformative pedagogy approach emphasizes the significance of transmitting the curriculum and constructing knowledge, but to also enable students to analyze and understand the social realities of their own lives and of their communities and how they can be transformed through various forms of social action.

This study aims to answer the following questions:

1. What type of programs do schools offer?
2. What pedagogical approaches are implemented in schools?
3. What are the educational conditions that impact cultural and linguistic pluralism?

This study involved interviews with principals, focus groups with teachers and parents, and classroom observations. The observations involved taking detailed notes of teacher pedagogy and how the curriculum connected to the experiences and prior knowledge of CLD students, (b) valued language and culture through their interactions with CLD students, and (c) instructed CLD students at various levels of cognition.

This study is significant because it considers possibilities for disrupting deficit-based pedagogical approaches for culturally and linguistically diverse students and poses possibilities for introducing empowerment-based pedagogical approaches that impact the cultural, linguistic and cognitive conditions for Latino student achievement. This is especially important for informing language policy reform, informing teacher preparation for educating culturally and linguistically diverse students, and for designing professional development for effective instructional methods in schools with large populations of Latino English learners.

Author

• Gustavo Gonzalez, Arizona State University