A Survey of Critical Literacy Education in Singapore: Challenges and Potentialities

• In Event: A Critical Perspective on Multi-Literacies With a Focus on Marginalized Students.

Abstract

This paper surveys the critical literacy educational landscape in Singapore, with the aim to critique existing literacy education in Singapore, presenting the conditions and challenges surrounding it as well as delineate the possible future direction it could take. Employing a postcolonial analytical angle and contextualizing literacy education within socio-economic, political and educational developments, the paper explores critical literacy education in and beyond Singapore classrooms. A literature review is conducted of the relevant scholarly works relating to critical literacy education in Singapore, including those related to “critical thinking” and in the key areas of English language, social studies and media literacy.
Critical literacy is not yet an established term in the official and academic discourses in Singapore. Instead of ‘critical literacy’, “critical thinking”, seen as a set of skills to be imparted, is promoted as part of an official instrumental response to the transition of Singapore into a knowledge economy. Koh (2002) noted how the strong social justice orientation within the teaching and learning of ‘critical literacy’ may not agree with the state. Nevertheless, a body of literature relating to critical literacy could be traced within English language, social studies and media literacy. A survey of works in these areas suggests narrow spaces for critical literacy. A pragmatic approach to literacy and the choice of English literacy have resulted in a functional view of literacy acquisition since the early days of education (Cheah 2001). While a significant component of the 2001 syllabus was the focus on aiming to nurture “independent lifelong learners, creative thinkers and problem solvers who can communicate effectively”, classroom research evidence “a longstanding instrumentalist logic” (Albright & Kramer-Dahl, 2009, p.201). Similarly, Ho (2010, p. 476) found that the social studies curriculum construed “a narrow and limited discourse of harmony and use it to legitimize policies that privilege particular groups, limit political freedom, marginalize groups with less power or status, and circumscribe the kinds of actions a citizen can legitimately take”. Studies investigating teachers and students’ responses to the curriculum also reflected an uncritical adherence to the official narrative (Ho 2010). Teachers do not discuss institutional or structural inequalities while students exhibited little awareness of them (Ho, 2010; Sim, Chua & Krishnasamy 2017). The framing of media literacy by the Media Literacy Council (MLC) which aims to foster “discerning Singaporeans who are able to evaluate media content effectively, and to use, create and share content safely and responsibly” (MLC n.d.) suggests the parameters critical media literacy is nurtured within.
The paper situates the discussion of critical literacy in an Asian educational context that uses English as its main medium of instruction. It argues for a multiliteracies approach to circumvent the ideological challenges delineated above and explore potentialities of critical literacy in Singapore. Given that Singapore is a polyglossia, this approach would entail a postcolonial perspective investigating power relations and knowledge production involving language. The assumed “neutrality” of knowledge production in the English language has marginalized knowledge in ethnic languages that co-exists in the society and should be interrogated.

Authors

• Mardiana Abu Bakar, Nanyang Technological University

• Siao-see Teng, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education