A Transformative Inquiry of Singapore Teachers' Conceptions of Home-School Literacy Connections

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

Abstract

The purpose of the 3-year study upon which this presentation is based is an engagement in a transformative inquiry that may move educators from a deficit to strength/asset based perspectives of historically underrepresented or marginalised students. In Singapore, studies have shown that students’ literacy practices and linguistic abilities, beyond normative English-knowing bilingualism, are rarely acknowledged or built upon by teachers. Consequently, the underlying competencies that students bring from their lives are erased by focused subject-based academic assessments within a highly competitive education system. In addition, a deficit perspective dominates educators’ perceptions of lower tracked students streamed at a relatively young age.

The funds of knowledge concept was first conceptualised and applied by Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenberg (1992) to describe the accumulation of abilities, bodies of knowledge, and cultural ways of interacting amongst U.S.-Mexican households. Although these funds of knowledge, which can include skills to navigate everyday interactions and worldviews, were seen as culturally, socially, and cognitively complex, the study demonstrated that educators were not using them as a resource to enhance students' academic progress. Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti's (2005) seminal research yielded rich examples of how to recognise particular funds of knowledge and apply them in a school setting. In the last decade, many scholars have extended the funds of knowledge concept in a variety of different ways (see Hogg, 2011, and Rodriguez, 2013 for reviews of the literature). We are extending the understandings and applications from funds of knowledge in the Singapore context.

Data for this presentation will draw from an exploratory, interpretivist qualitative study that examines students’ in-school and out-of-school literacy practices. The focus of the study is on lower-tracked students as those who have been streamed into the lowest achievement streams in two Singapore secondary schools that have yet to embark on the Full Subject-Based Banding (FSBB) initiative.
Data collection for this study will be done between 2021 and 2022, and include lesson observations, observations of interactions in homes and out of school spaces, interviews with teachers, parents and students and collection of artefacts.

The presentation will constitute the preliminary analyses of data from the study mentioned. The warrant for the study is that Singapore students' literacy practices and capabilities both in- and out-of-school are generally poorly understood by Singapore educators, who displayed little knowledge of their students’ out-of-school interests or literacies and relied on narrow summative assessments.Yet, a recent study amongst lower-tracked students have shown that they have well-developed individual interests, including culturally-embedded literacy practices outside of school which include songwriting, javascript and 3D video game art, video game modding, and community event organisation.

This transformative inquiry will help Singapore teachers draw on FOK in classrooms to enrich their understanding of academic content while also motivating them to move towards a more positive learner identity. It contributes to the theorising of FOK in an Asian context.

Authors

• Mardiana Abu Bakar, Nanyang Technological University

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