Developing literacy in second- language learners - CIE581Fall2009

Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 42, No. 4 October/November/December 2007 © 2007 International Reading Association (pp. 598–609) doi:10.1598/RRQ.42.4.8

ESSAY BOOK REVIEW

Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of The National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth. Edited by Diane August and Timothy Shanahan. 2006. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 669 pp. Softcover. ISBN 0805860770. US$65.00. Hardcover. ISBN 0805860762. US$245.00.

Developing literacy in secondlanguage learners: Critique from a heteroglossic, sociocultural, and multidimensional framework RACHEL A. GRANT SHELLEY D. WONG JORGE P. OSTERLING George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

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eveloping Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth reflects a systematic effort to shed light on the literacy development and schooling of English-language learners (ELLs) in the United States. This 669-page volume reports the culmination of a four-year process by the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth, which includes 13 expert researchers in reading, language, bilingualism, research methods, and education. The mission of the National Literacy Panel was twofold: “to identify, assess, and synthesize research on the education of language-minority children and youth with respect to their attainment of literacy and to produce a comprehensive report evaluating and synthesizing this literature” (p. 1). The contributors to Developing Literacy provide a comprehensive review of the existing research on the development of literacy in second-language learners in 598

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the United States that offers insights and direction to the field. Developing Literacy is organized into five parts: Development of Literacy in Second-Language Learners, Cross-linguistic Relationships in SecondLanguage Learners, Sociocultural Contexts and Literacy Development, Educating LanguageMinority Students: Instruction and Professional Development, and Student Assessment. Each part begins with a chapter that spells out the research questions for the chapters in that part, provides background information, describes the methodologies and addresses methodological issues, summarizes the empirical findings reported, and makes recommendations for future research. In the book’s Executive Summary (August & Shanahan, 2006), the editors highlight some of the major findings of the National Literacy Panel: 1. Instruction that provides substantial coverage in the key components of reading—identified by the National Reading Panel as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension—has clear benefits for language-minority students. 2. Instruction in the key components of reading is necessary—but not sufficient—for teaching language-minority students to read and write proficiently in English. Oral proficiency in English is critical as well—but student performance suggests that it is often overlooked in instruction. 3. Oral proficiency and literacy in the first language can be used to facilitate literacy development in English. However, language-minority students can acquire literacy in English-only classrooms as well. 4. Individual differences contribute significantly to English literacy development. 5. Most assessments do a poor job of assessing individual strengths and weaknesses. 6. There is surprisingly little evidence for the impact of sociocultural variables on literacy achievement and development. However, home language experiences can have a positive impact on literacy achievement. (pp. 3–7)

As critical literacy researchers and multicultural/ multilingual educators, we will begin our review by introducing our approach to the book and by arguing that a thorough and comprehensive assessment of the synthesis of research on ELLs in the United States, such as the one presented in Developing Literacy, requires an adoption of a heteroglossic, sociocultural, and multidimensional framework. The introductory section will be followed by one entitled “The heteroglossic nature of biliteracy” in which, inspired by the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1981), we argue that literacy is a social, cognitive, and linguistic process with ideological di-

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mensions. In the third section, entitled “A sociocultural approach to literacy research,” we discuss cognitive development within a sociocultural context of literacy practices. Finally, in a section entitled “Shifting the paradigm: Multidimensional,” we review Developing Literacy using a multidimensional, critical multicultural lens that takes into account power, race, and academic achievement.

Introduction to the reviewers and our approach to the review The authors of this review are an African American, an Asian American, and a Hispanic American. We all have an interest in critical multilingual, multicultural literacy education. We are all bilingual/bidialectal, and we teach graduate courses leading to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) licensure and master’s and doctoral degrees in multilingual/multicultural education. Rachel A. Grant, the first author, is of African heritage, a bidialectal English speaker of African American Vernacular English, who was educated at Howard University when the Civil Rights Movement had transformed into the Black Power, Black Consciousness, and Black Liberation Movements. She earned her doctorate in literacy from the University of Maryland. Her research has focused on comprehension and cognitive processes and she uses traditional quantitative research methods. Shelley D. Wong, a multilingual/multicultural educator of Chinese heritage, was born and raised in California, is fluent in English and Cantonese, and earned her master’s degree in teaching english as a second language (TESOL) at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her doctorate degree in applied linguistics at Teachers’ College, Columbia University. Jorge P. Osterling, the third author, is a Hispanic American born in Peru and educated both in Peru and in the United States, with a doctoral degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a university professor in four countries (Colombia, Germany, Peru, and the United States). Thus, we bring to our review of Developing Literacy a diverse set of perspectives on academic language and achievement. As Valdés (2004) argued, “as the Bakhtin Circle demonstrated, the context for all discussions, including academic debates, encompasses the surrounding voices that help shape, reconfigure, and constantly change the multivoiced utterances of the various speakers” (pp. 66–67).

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Our critique of Developing Literacy begins where Catherine Snow’s chapter, entitled “CrossCutting Themes and Future Research Directions,” ends. Snow noted, The political perspective that defines English as the national language of the U.S. cannot be ignored. Also relevant is the economic perspective: that immigrants must learn English to survive in the U.S. and gain little additional value from their home language.... The sociological perspective, which defines who interacts with whom and in what language(s), must be considered as well because opportunities for interaction also constitute opportunities for language learning. (pp. 649–650)

We had hoped when we began reading this book that the sociological perspective of literacy, which Snow used to conclude her chapter, would be the National Literacy Panel’s starting point. If the National Literacy Panel had begun its review with an understanding of the importance of anthropological and sociological dimensions of literacy, Developing Literacy would indeed have been a very different book. We believe that literacy needs to be understood as “critical literacy,” not merely as the accumulation of skills necessary for acceptable test performance or job preparation, because literacy, as Freire (1970; Freire & Macedo, 1987) often reminded us, is not a cultural or individual trait, or a distinct variable to be measured, but rather a complex set of social relations, ideologies, attitudes, and practices whereby people struggle around relations of meaning and relations of power (Darder, 1991). Therefore, following Freire, in this book review we will argue that literacy is not a mechanical skill to be learned and that literacy has a political and experiential dimension, which involves agency and power (Freire & Macedo). As critical literacy researchers and multilingual/ multicultural educators, we argue that literacy development for second-language learners in the United States must take into consideration the sociological dimensions of literacy, including issues of power such as the intersections of gender, race, and class (Grant & Wong, in press). By adopting a narrow, autonomous definition of literacy rather than a much broader ideological one (Street, 1984), Developing Literacy has ignored critical perspectives that shed light on the educational needs of language-minority students. To demonstrate the significance of the social, we focus on Part III of the book, which best shows what we see as missing in the autonomous, asocial paradigm that underlies most of its chapters. Rather than addressing the chapters sequentially, we

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choose instead to discuss only those parts of the book that foreground the framework we see as best advancing the interests of language-minority students. To foreground the difference between the two paradigms, we have organized our review of Developing Literacy within three interrelated sections dealing with the heteroglossic, sociocultural, and multidimensional nature of literacy.

The heteroglossic nature of biliteracy Defining heteroglossia As research on second-language development begins to move beyond the current cognitive to sociocultural models (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Kinginger, 2001; van Lier, 2004), Bakhtin’s (1981) notions of heteroglossia and intertextuality provide an appropriate framework in which to review Developing Literacy. This heteroglossic perspective emphasizes the role of language in positioning speakers and their texts within the heterogeneity of social positions and worldviews that operate in any culture. For Bakhtin, the nature of language is dialogic. Bakhtin’s understanding of language through the utterance places the individual and freedom in responsiveness to others. Through a dialogic approach, We use language that we have heard from other voices and these voices are in turn discursive products of their historical positions and their membership in various social groups. Heteroglossia exists as a force for change and diversity. (Wong, 2006, p. 199)

The term heteroglossia describes the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single linguistic code. In contrast to “sender–receiver” or “input–output” models of communication, dialogic approaches see language as a social semiotic (Halliday & Hasan, 1985); that is, language and literacy form an open system of meaning, which is historically situated as human intercourse.

Heteroglossia: Cross-linguistic implications Languages do not coexist peacefully, but rather are in a permanent state of competition. Bakhtin (1981) distinguished centripetal linguistic forces, exerted by official forms backed by the cultural or administrative establishment, from centrifugal forces, which are intent on preserving the existence of unof-

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ficial dialectal forms. He identified the former with the social processes of political, cultural, and ideological centralization. The dynamic processes of standardization and diversity not only occur within one language, such as Russian or English, but also are a feature of cross-linguistic effects in the acquisition of second-language literacy. Understanding the nature and extent of crosslanguage effects in the acquisition of literacy is critical for developing a comprehensive and heteroglossic theory of second-language development. For that reason, we choose to focus here on Part II: CrossLinguistic Relationships in Second-Language Learners of Developing Literacy. The research questions in this part follow: 1. What is the relationship between language-minority children’s first and second language oral development in domains related to literacy? 2. What is the relationship between oral development in the first language and literacy development in the second language? 3. What is the relationship between literacy skills acquired in the first language and literacy skills acquired in the second language? (p. 153)

In contrast to monolingual English-speaking students, language-minority students bring an additional set of resources or abilities and face an additional set of challenges when learning to read and write in English as a second language. In chapter 6, Fred Genesee, Esther Geva, Cheryl Dressler, and Michael Kamil highlight this bilingual dimension of cross-linguistic complexity to literacy research, “it may be time to move thinking about and research on second-language literacy development beyond simple frameworks that do not accommodate the complex processes that interact dynamically across grade levels as English-language learners acquire literacy in ESL” (p. 161). In our view, the insights provided in chapter 6 help us to move beyond simple “one-size fits all” approaches to second-language literacy education and research. Part II, Cross-Linguistic Relationships in Second-Language Learners, draws mainly from the research within behaviorist, cognitive, and interactional paradigms. Although Part II is a valuable contribution, we posit that the addition of Bakhtinian perspectives in literacy education (Ball & Freedman, 2004; Hall, Vitanova, & Marchenkova, 2005) could conceivably illuminate important cross-linguistic issues for language-minority students, including hybrid and multiple social identities (Norton, 2000; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004), world Englishes

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(Kachru, Kachru, & Nelson, 2006), and non-nativespeaker issues (Braine, 1999; Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 1999).

Heteroglossia and bilingualism In Part IV, Educating Language-Minority Students: Instructional Approaches and Professional Development, chapter 14, “Language of Instruction,” presents studies that compare bilingual programs with programs that use only English. The research questions that authors David Francis, Nonie Lesaux, and Diane August investigate include the following: 1. What impact does language of instruction have on the literacy learning of language-minority students? 2. Is it better to immerse students in English-language instruction, or are there benefits to developing literacy in English as well as in the native language? (p. 365)

The authors note in their review of research that “there is no indication that bilingual instruction impedes academic achievement in either the native language or English, whether for language-minority students, [or] students receiving heritage-language instruction” (p. 397). In fact, some research indicates that if students do not reach a certain threshold in language and literacy development in their first language they may experience difficulties in the second language (Collier & Thomas, 1989; SkutnabbKangas, 2000). Of interest in chapter 14 is the discussion of three studies on bilingual elementary programs conducted by Huzar (1973), Maldonado (1994), and Plante (1976), whose results favored bilingual programs over English-only programs. Francis, Lesaux, and August indicate, “Rather than confusing children...reading instruction in a familiar language may serve as a bridge to success...decoding, sound blending and generic comprehension strategies clearly transfer between languages that use phonetic orthographies” (p. 397). This conclusion supports important research in bilingual education that demonstrates that first-language literacy is the best predictor of long-term success for academic achievement for language-minority students (Collier & Thomas, 1997). Reading instruction in two languages is an important way of reducing the danger of “subtractive bilingualism” in which students lose the first language before acquiring the second (Lambert, 1975). In a subtractive approach, English replaces the home language of the child. In an additive approach, the

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heritage language is respected and maintained and English is taught as an additional language (WongFillmore, 2000). Inclusion of research from language policies and language rights would contribute to an understanding of heteroglossic forces of centralization and diversity in second-language literacy (May, 2001; Phillipson, 1992).

Heteroroglossia and assessment We now turn to Part V, Student Assessment, to apply our discussion of heteroglossia to the review of Developing Literacy. The area of second-language literacy assessment points to the centripetal (standardization) and centrifugal (diversifying) forces of language at work. For example, three sets of research questions in Part V include the following: 1. What assessments do states and school districts use with language-minority students for identification, program placement, and reclassification purposes? Are the assessments used for these purposes useful and appropriate? 2. What do we know about alternative assessments of oral English proficiency and literacy? 3. What first- and second-language vocabulary and widescale literacy assessments for language-minority students have been investigated? What does the research tell us about accommodations for language-minority students taking these assessments? (p. 583)

Because these questions acknowledge the complex and unique nature of assessment in English for language-minority students (Valdez-Pierce, 2003), we believe that Part V is particularly strong. The authors foreground problems of cultural and linguistic bias for the purpose of advancing bilingual perspectives in research design. The bilingual and cross-linguistic perspectives reflected in both Part II and Part V are an important corrective to the overall monolingual bias in the field of literacy research and assessment. Literacy research conducted solely in English may lead to deficit perspectives due to inaccurate assessments of prior knowledge or cognitive ability of English-language learners (Auerbach, 1995; Ricento, 2000). In sum, we respect the authors of the assessment chapters for addressing linguistic and cultural bias, promoting assessment in L1 (first language), and for arguing the necessity of accommodations for language-minority students. An area where further research needs to be conducted is in the area of language variety and assessment (Nero, 2006). The treatment of the bilingual dimensions of assessment is a progressive contribution to literacy research.


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However, we wish that instead of eschewing critical discussions of racism, class, and power, the authors had broadened the scope of their review to address historic patterns of inequality in schooling and assessment (Shohamy, 2000).

A sociocultural approach to literacy research Definition of the social Scholars who subscribe to the tenets of a sociocultural theoretical framework (e.g., John-Steiner, Panofsky, & Smith, 1994) provide key components for defining the social in literacy. They define social with respect to the model of language, the model of acquisition, and the model of research. Thus, a social model of language is functional as well as structural. This means that grammatical features are analyzed not only with respect to form but also in terms of their meaning and use. Second, the model of acquisition emphasizes social interaction. Social interaction is the generative context for mastery of language and literacy. For example, Wells (1981) demonstrated that collaboration in the negotiation of meaning and talk is a form of social action. Third, the social in the dialogic model of research involves an emphasis on investigation of literacy in local contexts and situated knowledge (Wong, 2006). In the field of second-language acquisition, the dominant cognitive paradigm sees the role of “social” as a factor. However, in a sociocultural approach, the social cannot be taken out of the equation. Vygotsky (1934/1978) saw the primacy of the social in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Drawing on Vygotsky, Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994) pointed out, The zone of ZPD is the framework, par excellence, which brings all of the pieces of the learning setting together—the teacher, the learner, their social and cultural history, their goals and motives, as well as the resources available to them, including those that are dialogically constructed together (p. 468).

The social mediates literacy development. In a recent review of sociocultural perspectives on race, culture, and learning, Nasir and Hand (2006) pointed out, “sociocultural theory may be useful in beginning to trace the links between classroom practice, cultural practice and repertoires of participation among ethnic groups” (p. 458). Central to sociocultural pedagogical perspectives is the tenet that learn-

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ing is not always a “benign activity”; rather, learning can occur from conflict, tension, and contradiction (Gutiérrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995). This can extend thinking about the ways in which individuals and social groups inquire and learn not only about ethnicity but also race and other dimensions of social inequality (Curtis & Romney, 2006; Motha, 2006).

Contrasting views on the social We see Part III: Sociocultural Contexts and Literacy Development as central to this review because sociocultural context should indeed be the starting point for research on second-language reading and language learners. The goal of the authors for Part III was “to review and evaluate the empirical evidence of the role of sociocultural factors in the literacy development of language-minority children and youth” (p. 249). Their six research questions follow: 1. What is the influence of immigration (generation status and immigration circumstances) on literacy development, defined broadly? 2. What is the influence of differences in discourse and interaction characteristics between children’s homes and classrooms? 3. What is the influence of other sociocultural characteristics of students and teachers? 4. What is the influence of parents and families? 5. What is the influence of policies at the district, state, and federal levels? 6. What is the influence of language status or prestige? (p. 249)

We would characterize the formulation of these six research questions as reflecting a cognitive rather than a sociocultural theoretical framework of literacy research (Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000). To make our point clear, we take a closer look at the first research question, “What is the influence of immigration (generation status and immigration circumstances) on literacy development, defined broadly?” (p. 249). The question itself includes relevant elements to a discussion of second-language literacy for language-minority students in the United States. Although the question uses the word influence instead of effect, the syntax of the research question suggests a quantitative tool for analysis. In the quantitative methodological tradition one asks what effect one variable has on another. Also of interest is the manner in which these variables might interact with each other and how different levels of one variable might interact with different levels of another

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variable. Research question one suggests that we can assign an individual as a 1 or a 2 with respect to their generation status or a 3 or a 4 with respect to immigration circumstances. These numbers, when placed in the analysis, will indicate how individuals differ on a measure of literacy. Although this approach is a good one to take in investigating language loss across generations, it is inappropriate for capturing the complexity and challenges posed by generational status and immigration circumstances for secondlanguage literacy development from a sociocultural perspective. Therefore, it is not surprising that following the methodological framework used to review the studies and to determine their value, the authors of chapter 10 concluded that “generation status did not appear to influence English reading and vocabulary skills” (p. 255). One growing area of interest in secondlanguage literacy research is social identity and academic achievement among U.S. high school graduates who enter college while still in the process of learning English. The term generation 1.5 originated in the Korean American community and was later used in Asian American studies as a new category to analyze generational status and social identity (Wong, 2000). Generation 1.5 students share characteristics of both first- and second-generation immigrants (Rumbaut & Ima, 1988) and do not fit into any of the traditional categories of non-native English speakers (Forrest, 2006). Generation 1.5 students immigrated to the United States as children (Yi, 2005). A common trait is that they may not have a strong literacy foundation in the first language (L1). Some are in the process of losing the home language without having fully developed academic literacy in English. Current research in social identity and L2 (second language) writing of generation 1.5 suggest that generation status contributes to an understanding of L2 literacy development (Yi). However, because generation 1.5 students may not have sufficient foundation in their first language, research findings that suggest generation status and social identity do not influence literacy development in L2 should be interpreted with caution (Harklau, Losey, & Siegal, 1999).

Sociocultural frameworks: The funds of knowledge Literacy activity around a cultural–historical perspective provides a range of “theoretical lenses” and methodological tools from which to examine the complex, persistent, and emergent social world of

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the classroom and other places where children and youth engage in literate acts, notably in familial and community settings (Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000). Researchers who investigate second-language development through a sociocultural lens have used a number of overlapping frameworks (Zuengler & Miller, 2006) including language socialization (Watson-Gegeo, 2004), learning in situated communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), and funds of knowledge (Moll & Greenberg, 1990). To our surprise, however, Part III of Developing Literacy questioned the value of sociocultural research in language-minority student achievement: The examples presented are intriguing, but they only illustrate, rather than “prove” the contention that the strategic application of cultural resources in instruction is one important way of obtaining change in academic performance and of demonstrating that there is nothing about the children’s language, culture, or intellectual capacities that should handicap their schooling. (pp. 328–329)

The language of “proving” is rarely used in quantitative or qualitative research. Moreover, in quantitative methodology researchers do not prove, but they reject the null hypothesis which is different from “proving.” The value of ethnographies, such as Delpit’s (1995) Other People’s Children, Heath’s (1983) Ways With Words, or Igoa’s (1995) The Inner World of the Immigrant Child, is that they provide rich descriptions of divergent literacy communities and practices. These descriptions are valuable to literacy researchers concerned with the achievement for language-minority students. It is perplexing, therefore, that the authors would expect ethnographic studies such as those conducted by Moll and Diaz (1986) to “prove” rather than illustrate the contention that strategic application of cultural resources is an important way of supporting academic achievement. By drawing on Vygotsky’s ZPD and on neosociocultural perspectives, the funds-of-knowledge methodology views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge. Widely used in the field of bilingual research (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Osterling & Buchanan, 2003; Osterling & Garza, 2004), it offers tools for educators seeking to address the specific needs of ELL students and families, and facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. The authors, Claude Goldenberg, Robert Rueda, and Diane August, continue their critique of Moll and Diaz’s (1986) funds-of-knowledge work by arguing that


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more systematic studies are needed to help examine the different possibilities. The use of the word systematic, however, suggests that quantitative research tools are needed to tease out one factor from another. By systematic the authors imply that each factor (e.g., use of the native language, more interesting activities, self-selection of topics) should be separated from each of the others for the purpose of analysis and, if they are not, the discussion is muddled or convoluted. In contrast, a sociocultural approach to literacy research takes a holistic approach to all of the above factors (Vasquez, 2003). Indeed one would not want to choose between (a) use of the native language, (b) more interesting activities, and (c) self-selection of topics, but would want to include (d) all of the above. Sociocultural approaches to literacy see the whole as being greater than the sum of the parts. Culturally responsive pedagogical practices that honor the home language and culture encourage students to draw from multiple resources for literacy development and academic achievement (Delgado-Gaitán, 1996).

Shifting the paradigm: Multidimensional Defining literacy for the 21st century We begin this section by identifying what we see as the two contrasting paradigms on literacy, academic achievement, and language-minority learners. To aid in the identification process, we elaborate on sociocultural theories of learning discussed in last section of this review. We hope this articulation will enable readers of this review to see that our understanding of literacy extends beyond the singular acts of reading and writing which are the foci in Developing Literacy. The authors of Developing Literacy define literacy acts as “including pre-reading skills, such as concept of print and alphabetic knowledge; word-level skills, including decoding, word reading, pseudo-word reading, and spelling; and text-level skills including fluency, reading comprehension, and writing skills” (p. 1). Throughout the history of schooling in the United States, efforts to incorporate the cultural politics of difference into conceptions of literacy have been viewed as chaotic and a threat to the social order (West, 1990, 1999). Our efforts to address what this means in the 21st century with respect to culturally and linguistically diverse learners require us to consider that there is

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emerging a significant shift in the sensibilities and outlooks of the forms, functions, measurements, and production of literacy (Walsh, 1996). As West (1999) did, we posit that such efforts are not new, but that the current cultural politics of difference reflect the precise circumstances of the present moment in time, and this moment incorporates “marginalized First World agents who shun degraded self-representations, articulating instead their senses of the flow of history in light of the contemporary terrors, anxieties and fears” (p. 119). With respect to language-minority students, this will mean that literacy researchers must make genuine efforts to capture the lived reality of history, culture, and power that permeate the individual, family, and community (i.e., the literate lives of these learners) (Toohey, 2000). To be privileged and American is to raise perennially the question, How will the schooling of those who are different in race, linguistic variety, nationality, social class, religion, and cultural background benefit the public interest? So we ask, who is “being served” by literacy research? Who are those asking the questions? What are the questions? We contend that the paradigm from which one views literacy determines its uses, and whom it serves. Yes, literacy is more than acquiring a set of skills making possible the acts of reading and writing (Edmondson, 2001). It is more than a series of cognitive acts, it is more than the standard scores gleaned from state-initiated performance tests, and it is more than the ability to secure a job or gainful employment. There is a political dimension to literacy, which can be illustrated by the example under slavery in which the slave master was able to prevent slaves from running away if they remained illiterate and isolated from the world. In Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom, Williams (2005) stressed that many enslaved Africans’ desire to read and write was stoked by a curiosity growing out of the knowledge that whites did not want blacks to become literate. Clearly, those held in bondage understood the power relations between master and slave, and they were keenly aware of the variety of acts whites perceived as threatening to their power. Therefore, “they fused their desire for literacy with their desire for freedom” (p. 7). In the United States, a technocratic meritocracy paradigm has regulated the formal schooling of language-minority learners (Grant & Wong, 2003). Within the last century more so than at other times, literacy and politics have worked in tandem to create barriers for many people of color, the poor, and fe-

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males (Willis & Harris, 2000). Meacham (2000/2001) expressed that Policymakers believed that it was necessary to promote literacy in keeping with a single cultural and linguistic identity at the expense of cultural and linguistic diversity.... In other words, structural singularity has been the structural hallmark of dominant social visions and literacy practices. (p. 182, italics added)

We would stress that within the United States a national consciousness of literacy is one consisting of historical antecedents that reflect the racialized manner in which language, culture, and literacy have been defined, promoted, and measured. Throughout the history of schooling, reading education has been promoted as essential for making the United States an industrial and economic power. Literacy is often there to produce economic skills and a shared system of beliefs and values, and to help create a “national culture.” Today, having a literate citizenry is deemed necessary for sustaining the United States as a military power and safeguarding its national security. The process for defining what counts as literacy and how to measure it has always been linked to particular regimes of power and dominance (Luke, 1996).

Autonomous versus ideological models of literacy We are reminded of Street’s (1984) challenge to autonomous models of literacy. As Larson (1997) wrote, “this dominant literacy pedagogy relies almost exclusively on traditional definitions of literacy as a reified set of basic skills devoid of social context or political implications” (p. 439). English-language literacy researchers and educators should consider the costs posed by the hegemony of English and its relationship to colonialism and exploitation, particularly in relationship to the problem of linguistic genocide and language loss (Lin & Luke, 2006; Pennycook, 1998; Ramanathan, 2002). An example can be found in the history of the Indian boarding schools, in which children were beaten for speaking Native American languages (Spack, 2002; Szasz, 1999). It is clear that African American, Latino, and children living in poverty are victimized by an aggressive standardized testing agenda and “back-to-basics” instruction that treats literacy as if it is apolitical, acultural, and universal. Universalism as a principal construct for literacy serves merely to reinforce and reproduce social and political systems of power and domination (Edelsky, 2006). Street (1995) contended that when literacy is conceived as autonomous and universalistic,

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the outcome for the poor, people of color, and those who are learners of English is that they remain subjugated learners, incapable of offering critical analysis of their own social and political context. The second paradigm situates all acts of literacy including reading and writing within multiple linguistic varieties and multiliteracies frameworks acknowledging the importance of social, cultural, historical, and power dynamics in defining, instructing, and measuring the literate lives of children, youth, and adults (New London Group, 1996). In building the case for this paradigm, we turn to Gee’s (2006 ) definition of literacy. To explain “what literacy is,” Gee took us back to what he sees as the precursor for any attempt at understanding literacy. He began by exploring discourses or “identity kits” in order to elucidate that “literacy” is part- and-parcel to a “Discourse.” Gee defined Discourse as, “a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network’” (p. 257). He noted that Discourses are inherently ideological in that they involve specific stances and dissect values and viewpoints expressed by those holding membership. Gee’s final point, one we believe necessary for coming to terms with historical failures of teaching and schooling for so many racial-, cultural-, and language-minority students across school and society, was that “discourses are intimately related to the distribution of social power and hierarchical structure in society” (p. 258). The multidimensional critical multiculturalism that we advocate in education offers a critique of deficit perspectives of the language, culture, race, social standing, and situated identities of children, families, and their communities (Kubota, 2004). For example, we look at the U.S. education system and the savage inequalities of poverty as the result of an unequal education system that places ELLs and nonstandard-English speakers at the bottom in academic standing and in life (Kozol, 1991).

Literacy: Extending the frameworks In working with Chinese students from the People’s Republic of China, Wong (2006) expanded the dialogic tool kit to include traditional Eastern philosophies, such as Confucian and Taoist epistemologies. In addition, there are dialogic approaches to inquiry within many Native American, African, Latino, and Caribbean epistemological traditions from around the world. It is important to build on ESOL students’ diverse ways of knowing to not only


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build a bridge from the known to the unknown for racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, but also to expand the canon for all U.S. students. However, mainstream curriculum too often seeks to assimilate minority students into the curriculum rather than draw from the diverse and multiple epistemological traditions of students. For that reason, we find that the work of Moll, , and others in incorporating the funds of knowledge from Mexican American communities into school curriculum is so valuable (González et al., 2005). A cognitive view of literacy keeps minority children’s literacy experiences in school separate from their experiences of the home and community. In drawing from the funds of knowledge in the students’ families, Moll, González, and others extend the ZPD into the community. This approach supports Cummins’s (1986) four frameworks for empowerment: (1) an additive, not a subtractive, approach to the home language and culture; (2) an interactive, not a transmission model of pedagogy; (3) incorporating, not excluding, the families and communities; and (4) assessment that is advocacy oriented, not gatekeeping. Rather than see the lack of evidence of the sociocultural dimension of literacy research as being due to inadequate research methodology, we question the criteria for “research” employed by the authors of Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners. It is not possible to “factor out” the social from literacy research. In fact, we do not wish to do so. Nor would we desire to “control” for race or culture. Indeed, we see that a research agenda that would begin with a multidimensional approach to literacy research for language-minority students must account for the complex intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender.

Closing thoughts The authors of Developing Literacy undertook what is indeed an ambitious task. We applaud their recognition of the importance and need to explore research on English language learners. We acknowledge that the editors have stimulated the articulation of research on literacy for learners of English in the tradition of work preceding their present efforts (August & Hakuta, 1997). On the surface, we see Developing Literacy as having succeeded in presenting a body of research about ELLs’ literacy and schooling in the United States. However, despite the breadth of this work, in our view it is not wide enough. Although members of the National Literacy Panel attempted to represent a wide range of research

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methodologies, a broader perspective of literacy that is inclusive of the social realities and possibilities for language-minority learners is missing. As reviewers, we began this book review by delineating our diversity in race, language, experience, and our political and social stance as critical literacy researchers because we believe that only through research based on multiple methodologies and perspectives, are we afforded the opportunity for comprehensive analysis of literacy development in a second language (Osterling & Fox, 2004). We end, therefore, where we wished that members of the National Literacy Panel had begun their review, with an understanding of the importance of the sociological perspective of literacy. More research is needed in the following three areas: 1. Heteroglossia: Further research is needed that problematizes traditional dichotomies of race, gender, and class and reflects the complexity and hybridity of social identity, academic achievement, and language-minority children and youth. Of particular interest is research that investigates the ideological dimensions of second-language literacy and challenges English-only hegemony, monolingualism, native-English-speaker norms, and other dimensions of privilege and power. 2. Sociocultural approach: More research is needed that blends traditional Vygotskian and activity theory with new literacy studies, postcolonial, poststructural, critical race, feminist, and womanist theories, namely those that stress the primacy of race and class, and the stance and viewpoints of black women, and many women of color. Research perspectives that incorporate the stance and viewpoints of language-minority students and their families also need diverse research methodologies to address their complex positionalities. Sociocultural research is inclusive of diverse research designs from experimental and quasi-experimental studies, case studies, narratives, ethnographies, historical studies, and critical discourse analysis (Luke, 1995/1996; Rogers & Mosley, 2006). 3. Multidimensional approach: Whom does research serve? How can research serve and involve practicing multilingual communities as transformative agents for social justice? An area that needs further research is how funds of knowledge can be used to support democratic participation for all culturally, linguistically, and ability diverse students and their full inclusion in community and economic development. How do anti-immigrant legislation and social movements of English-only affect the schooling of language-minority students? Of particular interest is research that combines an institutional analysis of

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racism, social and cultural capital, and literacy performance to address the achievement gap for language-minority students. RACHEL GRANT is an associate professor of education and director of the Center for Language and Culture at George Mason University (4400 University Dr. MS 4B3, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA; e-mail [email protected]). Her research interests are critical pedagogical approaches to literacy and academic achievement for linguistically and racially diverse students, with a particular focus on urban settings. SHELLEY WONG is an associate professor of multilingual and multicultural education at George Mason University (4400 University Dr. MS 4B3, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA; e-mail [email protected]). Her research interests are dialogic and sociocultural approaches to literacy and academic achievement for racial-, cultural-, and languageminority students. She is the author of Dialogic Approaches to TESOL: Where the Ginkgo Tree Grows published by Erlbaum. JORGE P. OSTERLING is an associate professor of multilingual and multicultural education at George Mason University (4400 University Drive, MS 4B3, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA; e-mail [email protected]). Born and raised in Lima, Peru, he attended Catholic University of Peru, where he received a BA in applied social sciences. He then attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he was awarded an MA and PhD in sociocultural anthropology. His scholarly work focuses on multicultural and bilingual education, curriculum reform, teacher education, and the education of Latinos, immigrants, and other culturally, linguistically, and ability diverse student populations.

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