Literacies and identities in transnational education: a case study of literacy curricula in a Canadian transnational education programme in China

Abstract

This ethnographic case study focused on a transnational education programme in an inner city in Mainland China that used both Chinese high school curriculum and Canadian provincial curriculum from New Brunswick. The goal of the study was to capture the desires and power relations that shaped literacy and identity options in the school's hybrid curriculum. Findings revealed the affordances of the programme in expanding students' cultural and linguistic knowledge and capabilities in two languages and the constraints to their literacy and identity options. Notable constraints included the compartmentalization of English and Chinese curricula, standardized literacy tests, and the school policies that limited teachers' incorporation of new media literacies and critical literacy. The study contributes to extant knowledge of transformative transnational literacy education that could help educators provide pedagogical opportunities for students to construct fluid and multi‐layered identities that connect to their complex, multilingual literacy practices.

Enacted Agency in a Cross-Border, Online Biliteracy Curriculum Making: Creativity and bilingual digital storytelling

“…The sociomaterial turn in literacy education and research has potential to help reconfigure new ways of representation and ways of learning and teaching literacies . Though illuminated by multiliteracies in our prior and current projects (e.g., Zhang, 2015;Zhang & Heydon, 2014;Zhang et al, 2020), we are in line with the current critiques of multiliteracies as an advocacy for transformative and inclusive pedagogies (e.g., Jacobs, 2014;Leander & Boldt, 2012;Rowsell & Burgess, 2017). Our findings refer to the importance of literacy researchers' and educators' reconfiguration of the concept of design: the artifacts and digital stories presented in the paper reveal biliteracy learners' "spontaneous, random, and unexpected" creative meaning making (Jacobs, 2014, p. 272).…”

Sustainable Learning Environment by Mobile-Assisted Language Learning Methods on the Improvement of Productive and Receptive Foreign Language Skills: A Comparative Study for Asian Universities

“…It has objectified the classification of knowledge, skills, and the means of process making. Multiple literacies express the cultural or communicative tasks' understandings of the other languages [15,16].…”

“…Nowadays, traditional devices like desktop computers have been replaced with electrical gadgets such as smartphones, equipped with numerous applications. They have developed language learning skills such as grammar, reading, writing, listening, and speaking [16][17][18]. In this paper, a systematic review was based on application of mobile-assisted language learning impact among higher education students to improve productive and receptive language skills.…”