Literacy Practices Across Contexts: The Case of Latina/o Language Minorities With Learning Disabilities

• In Event: Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in Research With Culturally Diverse Communities: A Multivoiced Construction of Participation

Abstract

The fourth paper, Literacy Practices Across Contexts: The Case of Latina/o Language Minorities with Learning Disabilities examines how Latina/o Language Minority (LM) students with Learning Disabilities (LD) engage in literacy across contexts. The problem at hand is that LM students with LDs are expected to engage in very specifically defined literacy activities in school that may or may not allow them to demonstrate competence. Traditional conceptualizations of literacy do not take into account that students with LDs use literacy practices, such as storytelling in different activity systems and in different contexts (e.g., home, school). This might mean that the longstanding low literacy performance of Latinos/as with and without LD offers a window into a limited understanding of the literacy competencies these students’ possess. What insights could be gained about the literacy learning of Latinas/os with LDs if broader views of literacy and population complexity were taken into account? This is the main challenge I address in this study, focusing on the following research question: What are the similarities and differences in storytelling, as a literacy event (Heath, 1983; Street, 2003), in which Latina/o LMs with LD participate in classroom and home contexts?
I use intersectionality and CHAT as a conceptual framework for this study. Policies and practices fragment the social lives and contexts of Latina/o LMs with LDs because students are researched and instructed based on categories (e.g., English language learners, disabilities), seldom accounting for students that live at the intersections of multiple forms of difference (Latina/o LMs with LDs). Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) allows a conceptual understanding of the unique social contexts students experience as they participate in different activity systems, such as literacy events. I used the praxis-oriented third generation CHAT (Engeström & Sannino, 2010) as a framework to make the social and psychological layers of storytelling visible.
This multi-sited qualitative study used participant interviews (i.e., students, parents, and teachers), ethnographic field notes (i.e., home and school), and document analysis (i.e., assignments and student work) to examine storytelling across home and school for four middle school student participants. All participants were LM Latina/o students with literacy related LDs. The data were collected in an urban district in the southwestern United States that served about 7700 pupils. The school had approximately 700 students; 94% of which were Latina/o, 12% in special education, and 32% ELLs. For my analysis, I focused on how tools and roles were used for storytelling across contexts. Preliminary findings indicate both contradictions and fluidity in the use of tools and participation in storytelling across the two sites (home and school). Using the CHAT framework, this paper describes findings and insights regarding the situated nature of storytelling of Latinas/os with LDs across home and school contexts.

Author

• Taucia Gonzalez, Arizona State University