Multiple Discourses of Literacy Meaning-Making: Case Studies of Two English and Two French Classrooms

An examination of the influence of institutional control on three teachers’ and twelve linguistically and culturally diverse children’s perceptions and constructions of literacy “meaning making” in English and French in two grade six English and two grade six French classrooms in Quebec. The children in this study represented a cultural and linguistic mosaic of new arrivals, second-generation immigrant and native Montreal families that include Cambodian, East Indian, French, Italian, Lebanese and Portuguese families. Similarly, the three teachers came from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds that included a native Montreal Anglophone, an immigrant from Egypt who was fluent in Arabic, English and French, and a second-generation Italian Quebecer who is fluent in Italian, English and French. The author's findings led her to four major conclusions: "First, while institutional controls such as textbooks, programs, evaluation, and teacher beliefs about literacy continue to maintain power of literacy meaning making practices in these four classroom contexts, the reconstruction and negotiation of this power varies across the classroom contexts and amongst the teachers and children. Second, the teachers' discourse and discursive practices, as well as, situational complexities such as the intersections of cultures, communities, classrooms and languages shape the childrens' literacy perceptions, interpretations and constructions in English and French within and across the classroom contexts. Third, teaching practices for literacy meaning making are neither solely analytical or experiential nor are they solely explicit or implicit. The three teachers' literacy practices appear to be more along a continuum than a dichotomy, that is, they appear to be local, strategic and contexts-related. Fourth, the recognition of a plurality of literacies suggest that childrens' cultural stances and viewpoints need to be considered, as well as, the kinds of literacy experiences they are and are not being asked to engage in their English and French classrooms."

PhD dissertation

McGill University

Montreal

2000

xiii-1003p.

en