Socio-Material Assemblages: (De)Colonizing Literacy Curriculum in Transnational Education

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Curricular Futures (Table 40)

Abstract

This study investigates how human/nonhuman assemblages impact K-12 transnational literacy curricula and how sociomaterial assemblages affect (de)colonizing literacy practices. Informed by posthumanism and decolonizing curriculum, this study focused on English and Mandarin literacy curricula at a Canadian transnational education program in postcolonial Hong Kong. The study employed ethnographic data collection tools. Findings show generative sociomaterial assemblages that enabled encounters of local-global curricula and languages and academic-multimedia literacies. New forms of imperialism and colonialism also joined the assemblage and normalized binaries of L1/L2, local/global, and academic/multimedia literacies, thus constraining students’ meaning-making across languages, places, and semiotic resources. The article proposes literacy curriculum and pedagogies that could foster students’ ethical relationship building with humans/nonhumans in globalized schooling contexts.

Authors

• Zheng Zhang, Western University

• Qianhui Ma, Western University