Literacy, defined as the ability to read and write, has had a long history in India; while the oral tradition existed for centuries, writing was introduced in the later Vedic period. The colonial period brought about mass education, English as the medium of instruction, and textbook-oriented literacy that led to the disintegration of the Indigenous education system. Postindependence concerted efforts have been undertaken to improve literacy for all age groups. Currently, various schemes and programs are reflective of the nation’s aim to be fully literate. Nevertheless, the objective has been deterred by caste, class, and poverty. Universalization of education, the Total Literacy Campaign, and the Right to Education have been significant aspects of five year plans since their inception in 1951 until the last five year plan that ended in 2017; these have ensured that literacy rates progressed from 12% to 75% in the past 70 years of independence. Despite these worthwhile steps and progress, universal literacy in India is a long-awaited aim.
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Article
Literacies in India
Radha Iyer
Article
Translanguaging and EFL Teaching
Zhongfeng Tian and Wei Li
Translanguaging is the capacity multilingual language users have to draw on different linguistic, cognitive, semiotic, and modal resources to make meaning and make sense, transcending the boundaries between named languages and between language and other meaning- and sense-making resources. The 21st century is a postmultilingualism era that is no longer about the harmonious parallel existence of multiple languages but about the infiltration, transgression, and subversion of boundaries that are artificially and ideologically set between languages, races, and nations. No single nation or community can claim sole ownership, authority, and responsibility for any particular language, including English, and boundaries between named languages, between languages and other communicative means, and the relationship between language and the nation-state are being constantly reassessed, broken, or adjusted. Translanguaging captures such changing dynamics and highlights the language user’s agency in exploiting their communicative repertoire holistically and in an integrated and coordinated way. When applied to English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning, translanguaging demands that not just the first language but the learner’s repertoire be visible and audible in the classroom, aiming to foster a more inclusive, equitable learning environment, especially for minoritized language speakers. Translanguaging as a pedagogical approach has been shown to deepen students’ understanding of certain content and topics, facilitate the learners’ participation and knowledge coconstruction with one another, develop their English language and literacy skills, and enhance their multilingual and multicultural awareness.
Article
Representing Masculinities in Children’s Literature Series
Troy Potter
Children’s literature operates as discursive social structures that establish young readers’ understanding of gender, including masculinities. Oftentimes, however, children’s literature perpetuates limited or normative constructions of gender. This is particularly the case for two genres that are popular with male readers: fantasy and comedy. Both genres for young readers contribute to the maintenance of a hegemony of masculinity that values independence, action, resourcefulness, and bravery.While some fantasy and comedy series for young readers begin to expand the repertoire of acceptable masculine traits by incorporating empathy and consideration of others, validating more sensitive models of masculinity, they do not necessarily undermine the hierarchy seemingly inherent to masculine dynamics. By understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory messages about masculinity that are presented in books for young people, educators can develop critical ways of reading fiction to engage children in meaningful conversations about gendered identities in order to promote acceptance and understanding of all genders and differences, not just those relating to masculinities.
Article
Multilingualism in Monolingual Schools and the German Example
Ingrid Gogolin
The majority of European countries consider themselves as monolingual nation-states. Some exceptions are countries composed of different linguistic territories, such as Belgium and Switzerland. Another form of exception is countries where certain territories are inhabited by linguistic minorities who are granted particular linguistic rights. Monolingualism with exceptions for special constellations or cases is therefore considered the “linguistic normality” in European nations. This understanding of normality is also reflected in the nations’ public institutions and is particularly pronounced in the national education systems.
The linguistic reality in Europe, however, contrasts with this notion of normality. Since time immemorial, the regions that have become European nation-states have been characterized by linguistic diversity, not only across but also within their boundaries. Since the second half of the 20th century, however, the number of languages that are vital and used daily has considerably increased. The most important driver of this development is international migration. Some European countries—Germany in particular—belong to the most attractive immigration destinations of the world. Despite of this reality, European national education systems largely persist in their monolingual mindset—or in other words: in a monolingual habitus.
This ambiguity can be amply illustrated by the example of the German education system. Education research shows that it belongs to the causes of educational disadvantage for children from immigrant families. This is precisely why innovation initiatives have been launched to mitigate the risks to teaching and learning associated with multilingualism, while making the best use of the resources offered by linguistic diversity to all children—be they growing up in monolingual or multilingual families.
Article
Indigenous Language Revitalization
Anne Marie Guerrettaz and Mel M. Engman
Countless Indigenous languages around the world are the focus of innovative community regeneration efforts, as the legacies of colonialism have created conditions of extreme sociopolitical, educational, and economic adversity for the speakers of these languages—and their descendants. In response to these conditions that Indigenous people face globally, the burgeoning field of Indigenous language revitalization and maintenance has emerged since the 1990s with the goal of supporting speakers of these languages and future generations. Indigenous language revitalization involves different but often interlocking domains of research, practice, and activism. Given the uniqueness of each community and their desires, history, values, and culture, the significance of the local is critical to the global phenomenon that is language revitalization. For instance, cases on five different continents offer valuable insights into this field, including the Hawaiian language in Oceania; Myaamia in the United States (North America); Básáa in the Cameroon (Africa); Sámi in Finland (Europe); and, Cristang and Malay in Malaysia (Asia). These offer examples of both local resources and common challenges that characterize revitalization efforts.
The field of Indigenous language revitalization is interdisciplinary in nature, exemplified through five lines of inquiry that significantly contribute to this area of research: (a) theoretical linguistics and anthropology, (b) applied linguistics, (c) education, (d) policy studies, and (e) critical studies, including postcolonial studies, Indigenous studies, and raciolinguistics. Questions of research ethics are central to the field of Indigenous language revitalization since reciprocity and collaboration between researchers and Indigenous communities matter as the lifeblood of Indigenous language revitalization work. Finally, we believe that the notion of Indigenous language revitalization pedagogies along with underexplored Indigenous concepts (e.g., from Yucatecan and Māori scholars) offer compelling directions for future research.
Article
Language Planning and Education in Asia
M. Obaidul Hamid and Md Maksud Ali
The relationship between language planning and education is described by terms such as language in education planning (LEP), which is a subtype of language policy and planning (LPP). Although LEP is limited in scope because of its association with education only, it has attained special significance because the broader societal language policies are usually enacted through the mechanism of LEP. A survey of LEP in theoretical and empirical terms is reported. Theoretically, the examination of the nature, context, purpose, and process of LEP with reference to a framework for policy translation is followed by a discussion of various directions of research in LPP and LEP to provide an understanding of what questions have driven the field, and what theoretical and methodological resources have been deployed for research. The empirical examination focuses on language in education policy in Asia to provide an understanding of what languages have been prioritized, what types of language programs have been implemented, what linguistic perspectives have underpinned those languages and programs, and what linguistic and social outcomes have been reported for this linguistically and culturally diverse region in the world. The review of selective studies shows that LEP in Asia has prioritized national language and English, giving limited attention to local minority languages. Although there is a growing recognition of linguistic diversity and multilingualism across the world, Asia seems to be still dominated by monolingual ideologies as reflected in the language programs. The continued dominance of English, which is brought to schools and higher education institutions as a language subject and/or a medium of instruction, is another observation. Language testing, which works as de facto language policy, also endorses the hegemony of English given its perceived instrumental value as a global lingua franca in a neoliberal world. An overview of where LEP with reference to Asia currently stands and how it may evolve in the future marks the conclusion.
Article
Digital Game-Based Learning: Foundations, Applications, and Critical Issues
Earl Aguilera and Roberto de Roock
As contemporary societies continue to integrate digital technologies into varying aspects of everyday life—including work, schooling, and play—the concept of digital game-based learning (DGBL) has become increasingly influential. The term DGBL is often used to characterize the relationship of computer-based games (including games played on dedicated gaming consoles and mobile devices) to various learning processes or outcomes. The concept of DGBL has its origins in interdisciplinary research across the computational and social sciences, as well as the humanities. As interest in computer games and learning within the field of education began to expand in the late 20th century, DGBL became somewhat of a contested term. Even foundational concepts such as the definition of games (as well as their relationship to simulations and similar artifacts), the affordances of digital modalities, and the question of what “counts” as learning continue to spark debate among positivist, interpretivist, and critical framings of DGBL. Other contested areas include the ways that DGBL should be assessed, the role of motivation in DGBL, and the specific frameworks that should inform the design of games for learning.
Scholarship representing a more positivist view of DGBL typically explores the potential of digital games as motivators and influencers of human behavior, leading to the development of concepts such as gamification and other uses of games for achieving specified outcomes, such as increasing academic measures of performance, or as a form of behavioral modification. Other researchers have taken a more interpretive view of DGBL, framing it as a way to understand learning, meaning-making, and play as social practices embedded within broader contexts, both local and historical. Still others approach DGBL through a more critical paradigm, interrogating issues of power, agency, and ideology within and across applications of DGBL. Within classrooms and formal settings, educators have adopted four broad approaches to applying DGBL: (a) integrating commercial games into classroom learning; (b) developing games expressly for the purpose of teaching educational content; (c) involving students in the creation of digital games as a vehicle for learning; and (d) integrating elements such as scoreboards, feedback loops, and reward systems derived from digital games into non-game contexts—also referred to as gamification. Scholarship on DGBL focusing on informal settings has alternatively highlighted the socially situated, interpretive practices of gamers; the role of affinity spaces and participatory cultures; and the intersection of gaming practices with the lifeworlds of game players.
As DGBL has continued to demonstrate influence on a variety of fields, it has also attracted criticism. Among these critiques are the question of the relative effectiveness of DGBL for achieving educational outcomes. Critiques of the quality and design of educational games have also been raised by educators, designers, and gamers alike. Interpretive scholars have tended to question the primacy of institutionally defined approaches to DGBL, highlighting instead the importance of understanding how people make meaning through and with games beyond formal schooling. Critical scholars have also identified issues in the ethics of DGBL in general and gamification in particular as a form of behavior modification and social control. These critiques often intersect and overlap with criticism of video games in general, including issues of commercialism, antisocial behaviors, misogyny, addiction, and the promotion of violence. Despite these criticisms, research and applications of DGBL continue to expand within and beyond the field of education, and evolving technologies, social practices, and cultural developments continue to open new avenues of exploration in the area.
Article
Youth Activism through Critical Arts, Transmedia, and Multiliteracies
Theresa Rogers
In the context of increasing realizations of the fragility of democracy, the possibilities and accomplishments of youth activist projects across material and virtual spaces and sites continue to flourish. Research on this work is situated in the rich scholarly traditions of critical youth studies and critical youth literacies as well as in theories of civic engagement, public pedagogy, participatory politics, cosmopolitanism, and relational mobilities. Many youth projects draw on the resources of arts, digital media, and critical multiliteracies to participate, in material ways, in public and political life. Taking up issues such as citizenship for immigrant youth, homelessness, and poverty, young people powerfully create critical, social, and political narratives that resonate within and beyond their own communities. Theorizing this work in relation to public engagement, spatiality, and mobilities deepens our understanding of those moments when youth in community and educational sites create powerful transmediated counter-narratives about their lives and worlds—the ways they incorporate both local and global understandings to create these new forms of political participation. And the work itself underscores the need for more equitable access to various multimodal and digital resources and the importance of youth access to public and mediated spaces. Schools and educators are called to create pedagogical spaces that invite students’ subjectivities, locations, and creative uses of material resources to engage in local and larger public dialogues, counter dominant cultural ideologies, address multiple publics, and create new forms of political participation.
Article
Multilingualism and Identity in Hong Kong Education After 1997
Michelle Mingyue Gu and Ho Kin Tong
Multilingual settings are regarded as ideologically, culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse social contexts where tensions exist among different groups and individuals, and in which language users’ multilingual competence can be utilized as repertoire for communicative, identification, and learning purposes. Multilingualism and identity have been widely explored from different theoretical orientations in diverse educational settings. The major research findings from the postmodernist perspective reflect that (a) identity, reflecting an individual’s relationship with the external environment, is dynamic, multiple, and fluid; (b) individuals’ identities are continuously shaped in multilingual interactions, and the multilingual settings provide affordance for the language users to identify themselves through the lens of cultural memories, embodied history, subjectivity of themselves and others, during which the new identities and relationships are established; and (c) the multilingual speakers can shape the multilingual settings through negotiating power relations between languages as well as cultures, and modifying as well as reconstructing social discourses. As such, the exploration of multilingualism and identity, and their complex interplay with educational discourse, history, and sociopolitical realities, have both theoretical significance and practical implications for transferring diversity into recourses and constructing new spaces and opportunities for identity, language, and education in an era of increasing hybridity and mobility.
Article
Education of Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Children
Nihad Bunar
There is an increasing interest in policy and research regarding the educational experiences of refugee and asylum-seeking children. In many countries across the globe these children constitute a growing segment of the student population. Like other student categories, refugee and asylum-seeking children have rights to an equal and meaningful education. Nevertheless, numerous research contributions have proven that these children are, from the outset, in a disadvantaged position that has been further exacerbated by poorly educated teachers, a lack of resources, the absence of appropriate support, exclusion, and isolation. There is far less evidence of positive examples. Three distinct perspectives have been widely discussed in the literature: a) inclusion and exclusion through organizational spaces; b) pedagogical practices and classroom-based interventions; and c) relations between schools and refugee and asylum-seeking parents.
A review of the literature suggests that refugee and asylum-seeking students or, for that matter, other migrant students with poor socioeconomic status in a host country will never have equal educational opportunities unless their previous experiences are properly assessed, understood, and recognized and unless their first language is acknowledged as a vital vehicle for learning. Furthermore, scaffolding must be provided by language support teachers, and students must be granted access to inclusive spaces on the same terms as other non-migrant students. Finally, parents ought to be provided with platforms for active involvement and a tangible opportunity to advocate for their children’s educational rights.
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