The Eighth International Literacy & Education Research Network Conference on

SPETSES, GREECE
4-8 July 2001

Dr Mary Kay Rummel

Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Minnesota, Duluth, U.S.A

Elizabeth Quintero

Associate Professor

Critical Literacy and Global Borderland Communities

Abstract

This study is based upon a post-formal perspective (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1997) which demands that the politics of knowledge be examined. Critical literacy is the mechanism by which learners have opportunity to use their literacies to transform and better their lives. In previous studies we have seen that by studying the common experiences of students in very different historical and political contexts much can be learned. We interviewed teachers, parents and students from multicultural communities in many contexts in order to investigate how strengths and tensions in "borderland" groups of cultures affect literacy and language use, learning and teaching and to explore how policy and practice could improve by acknowledging and using this information. Out interviews include autobiographical narratives, video ethnography in classrooms and artefacts and work samples from participants.

Bionote

Rummel and Quintero are co-authors of Teachers' Reading, Teachers' Lives (1997). SUNY Press. American Voices Webs of Diversity (1998). Merrill Education. Educational Foundations For a New World (2001). Peter Lang Publishers. They are currently conduction research for a case based book on critical literacy from a global perspective.

Presentation Type
30 min. Paper

Presentation Equipment and Other Requests
VCR if possible

Speaking Date/Time Restrictions

Country
USA