Developing Transnational Literacies

"Research exploring the means by which new media technologies can shape development within marginalized communities worldwide has began to move away from discussion limited to technical and infrastructural, to consider the interactions, beliefs, and values of local communities. Yet most projects continue to focus on enabling communities to access external information, rather than on the possibility of using media to catalyze community reflection and thereby developmental activity from within. This article shows how this promise can be actualized by providing an overview of an experimental project that made available a set of video cameras to a carefully selected group of community members in a ritualized, largely nonliterate village in Andhra Pradesh, India. It concludes that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners would benefit from considering the possibilities that reflective media hold to generate collective action and consensus building, and that these possibilities can synergize with the need to develop scalable projects."

"The development of individuals' digital skills has received much attention as a remedy for digital inequality. Although some researchers favor courses and guided learning for skills development, others propose learning by trial-and-error. Unfortunately, studies examining the value of the so-called "do-it-yourself approach" for the development of digital skills remain lacking. One difficulty lies in the vicious circle of lack of skill leading to infrequent Internet usage and vice versa, which limits the value of cross-sectional data for assessing the impact of this approach. We present longitudinal data on a random sample of Internet users in a Dutch city, which show that more frequent Internet use leads to more digital skills, but not the other way around. However, contrary to expectations about the potential of trial-and-error learning to reduce inequality, results also suggests that this approach is not always more beneficial to the "have-little" as compared to the "have-more." The only inequality-reducing effect of this approach is that that older users profit more from it than younger users do."

"Researchers from a range of disciplines have been theorising and empirically examining intercultural competence and intercultural education for decades. This review article synthesises the research literature about these concepts around three questions: What is intercultural competence? How can it be developed? And how can it be measured? Our aim is to provide an overview of current theories and empirical findings, as well as to show gaps in the literature."

"This essay argues for an interdisciplinary, team-taught approach to the Introduction to Graduate Studies course in which faculty from literary and rhetoric/ writing studies model the intersections of both fields through course texts, assignments, and theoretical frameworks. The authors also discuss the role of terminal master's programs in English and the need for graduate writing instruction."

"This essay explores intersections between reading and privilege and moves out from a survey of faculty reading practices to consider what is at stake in distinguishing between "real" and "instrumental" reading. Allen argues that, as privileged subjects, teachers can best help students approach reading as the negotiation of uncertainty when teachers themselves undertake such negotiation. That is, instructors do well to consciously inhabit and emotionally integrate their own contradictory desires for reading-the desire for institutional viability associated with instrumental reading, on the one hand, and the desire for the leisured thought of real reading, on the other."

"This article examines some of the central paradoxes of vernacular language use in the classroom and suggests methods for converting those paradoxes into productive teaching opportunities. Beginning from a linguistic point of view, the authors discuss the devaluing and marginalization of the vernacular in educational settings and then move on to literary examples, demonstrating how vernacular literature generates its own transnational conversation. The authors propose concrete strategies for incorporating vernacular language and literature in language arts, composition, and literature classrooms at secondary and university levels."

"This article explores how composition courses might address contemporary capitalism's strain on students' time resources through a classroom practice of temporal awareness. The piece discusses two related dimensions of this approach. The first involves incorporating students' considerations of time into course content; the second, rooted in teacher inquiry, asks writing instructors to examine how time mediates the pedagogical relationships developed within their courses."

"While critics have argued that the films of Singapore director Jack Neo posit a critique of the state, this essay will argue the contrary. In deploying Chinese 'dialects' his films may appear to give voice to the Chinese-speaking masses in Singapore, especially those who have been marginalized by the state's political economy, which clearly favours the educated and English-speaking milieu. For the Chinese-speaking masses, his films may even appear to act as a medium or outlet for 'anti-state' criticisms which they feel but cannot articulate, since criticism of the government is essentially prohibited here. However, as this essay will demonstrate, Neo uses such linguistic idioms only as a foil to further perpetuate government propaganda: he uses Chinese 'dialects' to draw his intended audience to his side, and once they are taken in, he persuades them to reconcile with unpopular government policies. In other words, Neo's films constitute an extension of state politics via cinematic means, rather than an authentic political critique. As this essay also suggests, unveiling Neo's manipulation of language in his films as such will be critical to uncover not only Neo's underlying political intent, but also the unequal distribution that underlies the state's language policies"

"This article attempts an initial exploration of the ramifications of geopolitical partition for identity in the context of children and their education. While not an exhaustive definition, partitions may be observed to follow armed conflict between human collectivities (nation-states, putative nations, ethnic groups, etc.) and are the outcome of treaties, armistices and unilateral action. Furthermore, a comparative and historical overview suggests that such macro-political action has clear micro-sociological impact, not least upon children and their families. While there may be some overlap with the creation of refugees this is by no means an automatic outcome of partition. On the other hand, an 'imagined community' with refugee status may be a consequence of conflict, the drafting of new geopolitical boundaries together with voluntary or forced migration. Here, in the context of children's education, questions are posed regarding the disintegration of collective identity, the construction of otherness and the formation of new identities as manifested, inter alia, in the dynamics of nationality, language and religion. Inevitably, while the consequences of partitions set challenges for the possibility for intercultural dialogue they may also establish the possibility of new opportunities for the development of more inclusive identities."

"In this essay I reflect on the role of intercultural education in an emerging global crisis. Education systems are characterised by both divergent and convergent impulses. Divergent impulses include tradition, nationalism and religion. Convergent impulses (isomorphism) include science and technology, culture (including the English language), system compatibility and examinations and mobility (including the movement of ideas and the internet). The crisis of globalisation now seems to have four distinct elements: the economic recession, the new international order, hydrocarbon and other resource depletion, and climate change. Crisis is an over-used word but these are all fairly potent forces. What are the implications of these current and impending changes for intercultural education? Can schools and universities ever adapt and can they adapt quickly enough? The necessary curricular changes in schools and universities will involve the interaction of political power at crisis point with often traditionalistic epistemologies. It is possible to predict further international convergence and increased isomorphism but not how, or indeed whether, the crisis will be resolved."

"Educational programs designed to bridge the digital divide for girls often aim to increase girls' technological literacy. However, little research has examined what aspects of technological literacy are highlighted in these programs. In this article, I provide a case study of a video game design workshop hosted by a girls' advocacy organization. Through observations, interviews, and analysis of program materials, I look at how the organization conceptualizes technological literacy as contributing to gender equality. I compare this conceptualization to how technological literacy was taught in the classroom. Finally, I draw on situated learning theory to help explain how girls responded to the class. In the end, both the organization's limited notion of how technological literacy could increase gender equality as well as gender and race differences between the teachers and the girls influenced girls' participation in the workshop."

"Horrible Science is a popular UK-based brand of books, toys and magazines aimed at 7-11 year olds. At first sight, the term 'horrible' might be taken as embodying a critique of science and technology. However, a closer look reveals Horrible Science quite playfully twisting between positive and negative uses of the word, often transforming the latter into the former in the process. The horrible of Horrible Science is clearly signalled as fun. It is domesticated to undermine any sense of fear associated with its imagery. Moreover, the horrible of Horrible Science becomes related to an imagery of truth which is deferential to the work and social standing of the scientific community; it draws analogies between the horrible and science in terms of granting hardness, exclusivity, and even an intuitive closeness to nature. Horrible Science's cultural critique of science and technology, as much as they exist, are accommodated within a traditional discourse of celebrating scientific achievements and deferring to its expertise. By sampling more irreverent discourses, Horrible Science offers a way to excuse a type of earnest reverence, delight and excitement for science that had become unfashionable by the end of the twentieth century. It packages science for sale to a 'public' who want to enjoy science and be seen doing so, but who are also aware of the advantages of their outsider identity. In Horrible Science, an irreverent deference is a form of quite 'late modern' science communication, one that feels the need to show awareness of critique and counter-arguments if it to be trusted by its critically aware audiences."

"This study draws on the application of sociocultural theory to second-language learning and teaching to examine the impact of a design-based research approach on teacher development and literacy instruction to English-language learners (ELLs). Design-based research methodology was employed to derive theoretical suppositions relating to the process of learning as well as the means by which this process is supported. Our research questions were: (a) How will this professional development model result in shifts in teacher thinking about language and literacy learning for ELLs; (b) what innovations in teachers' repertoires of practice will be developed; and (c) in what ways will these shifts in teachers' thinking and innovations in their repertoire of practice bring about new forms of language and literacy learning? Our findings point to the need to place development in the forefront of teacher professional development models. Also foregrounded is the importance of promoting teachers' critical reflection on classroom practices and of creating hypotheses for pedagogical change vis-à-vis new understanding about students' linguistic, cognitive and academic needs."

"Comics and education is usually synonymous with low literacy levels, reluctant readers and a predominantly male audience. Through an ethnographic study of an extra-curricular Graphic Novel Reading Group set up in a secondary school, this paper questions such assumptions and discusses some of the complex issues around the place that comic book reading occupies amongst adolescent readers in educational institutions. It demonstrates the sophistication of their readings of comics through the value placed on form (Groensteen) but acknowledges that it is the marginal cultural position (Pustz) that comics still occupy in Britain which also constitutes much of their value for these teenage readers. The place of comic book reading in schools is thus problematized when one considers actual, as well as implied, readers."

"The cultural complexity of student populations presents major challenges for contemporary schooling in Western migrant nations such as Australia. While this has much to do with the diverse linguistic and ethnic backgrounds of students, other differences such as socio-economic status, family histories and gender add to this complexity. Yet, the complexities of education are not only a function of the cultural and social diversity of the student population. There are vast differences in students' educational and physical capital which are related but not reducible to these diversities. Complexity is inherent in the culture and philosophy of schooling; the processes of becoming literate, numerate and learning how to learn. While students have diverse needs, there are common skills that must be acquired, skills that are requisite for effective social participation in contemporary globalized societies. The challenge for education, and for dealing with complexity in any field, is to avoid being reductionist in the process. This article explores approaches to navigating these complexities in educational policy and practice, highlighting the ways in which simplistic understandings can prove problematic and yet, how certain forms of complexity reduction are necessary in achieving goals of educational access and equity."

"ABSTRACT: Over the last three decades scholars promoting the world Englishes paradigm (WE) have worked towards establishing a more positive attitude towards international varieties of English. However, despite the best intentions of Western linguists working in this field, there is an obvious imbalance between the developed and developing world in many contexts of English language education. Educators and teachers in many Outer Circle and Expanding Circle contexts face difficulties in terms of conditions, facilities, and resources very different from those of Western institutions. Academics in developing societies have parallel difficulties in publishing research, both in journals and in books with international publishers, while local options for publishing are often restricted. This paper suggests a number of ways in which linguists and other scholars might begin to engage with a range of issues related to 'developmental world Englishes'"

"Drawing on the case of Taiwan, this article looks at high-skilled migration from the West to Asia. I explore how Western high-skilled migrants exert agency to negotiate their positions as non-citizens, privileged others and professional workers. I have coined the term 'flexible cultural capital conversion' to describe how English-speaking Westerners convert their native-language skills, as a form of global linguistic capital, into economic, social and symbolic capitals. Their privileged positions are nevertheless mediated and constrained by their class, nationality, race/ethnicity and gender. In the global context, whiteness is marked as a visible identity and the 'superior other'. Such cultural essentialism functions as a double-edged sword that places white foreigners in privileged yet segregated job niches. Their flexibility in capital conversion and transnational mobility is territory-bound. Many experience the predicament of 'cultural ghettoisation' in the global South, and they often face grim job prospects on returning home to the North."

"This article presents a few issues in the making of our film A Long History of Madness that pertain to the 'Babylonic'. Spoken in 12 languages, ranging across six centuries, and shot in five countries, the film possesses an inherent Babylonism. It makes a case for a multilingual mode of communicating. Yet, beyond the obvious need for verbal communication, for which subtitles are necessary but insufficient, the film presents other reasons for extending the concept of translation. The knot of potential confusion and the need for 'translation' are the ontological uncertainties surrounding 'madness' itself. The key questions are: are people mad? Do they perform madness, or do others perceive them as mad because they are too dissimilar from them to be accepted as 'normal'? This fundamental uncertainty affects all forms of alterity. Translation becomes, then, a tool to negotiate alterity under the terms of the acceptance of this ontological uncertainty."

The papers which are included in this Special Issue represent eclectic understandings of the dual concepts of mobile language and border crossings, from crossings in 'virtual life' and 'real life', to crossings in literature and translation, and finally to crossings in the 'semioscape' of tourist guides and tourism signs. In the way in which the papers have been arranged in this issue they more or less correspond to one of these dimensions.

"This article suggests that linguistic anthropology offers useful analytical tools to documentary studies because both fields wrestle with questions that emerge from the circulation of indexical representations that are putatively constructing truths. Linguistic anthropology is deeply concerned with the ways that texts circulate, and how this circulation affects how indexical representations are structured and how constructions of reality are produced. The question this article tackles is: how can insights that linguistic anthropologists have been developing about circulation, indexicality, and the construction of facts be usefully mobilised to think about documentaries?"