Language as Social Context and Literacy Development of Students from Diverse Backgrounds

In this article, the author invokes Cummins’ model for social empowerment of minority students to suggest an alternative way of thinking about the empowerment of school communities. This paper explains Cummins’ theoretical framework and suggests implications that might help teachers better understand social language literacy development in terms of Cummins’ (1986-1994) conceptual framework, which is based on the notion that students who are from a diverse background are in need of school literacy learning that attends to “the goals of instruction, the role of the home language, instructional materials, classroom management and interaction with students, relationships with the community, instructional methods and assessment” (Au, 1998, p. 298). This paper also attempts to explain how the relationships among students’ literacy development, social practices, and their diverse background empower them and assess them in developing their learning literacy skills, taking into consideration the types of literacy that best work with diverse communities. 1 El Shaban: Language as Social Context and Literacy Development of Students f Published by PDXScholar, 2013 Fall 2013, Volume 11, Number 2 130 Introduction Social context plays an important role in enhancing children’s learning and literacy development. Social context is found in the children’s school and communities where they learn, talk, read, and write. Within the last three decades, many educators, anthropologists, and linguists have explored and defined the importance of the social context for students’ literacy development (Heath, 1989; Lewis, 2009). According to Heath (1989), children can be affected in their literacy development by their social context as well as their interaction with family members, parents, peers, and teachers. Thus, social context refers to “the societal setting in which events occur—in this case, the various surroundings at home, at school, and in the community in which children learn to talk, read and write” (Wells, 1982). Because of the significance of students’ literacy development and the social diversity of students from different backgrounds, many educators now consider these diverse social perspectives and acknowledge the importance of those students’ “ethnicity, primary language, and social class to literacy learning” (Au, 1998, p. 279). This means there is a tendency in education toward understanding and considering the relevance of the students’ linguistic background and cultural diversity. This paper suggests some implications that are useful for teachers to understand the social language literacy development in terms of Cummins’ (1986-1994) conceptual framework, which is based on the notion that students who are from a diverse background are in need of school literacy learning that gives an adequate attention to “the goals of instruction, the role of the home language, instructional materials, classroom management and interaction with students, relationships with the community, instructional methods and assessment” (Au, 1998, p. 298). This paper is an attempt to explain how the relationships among students’ literacy development, social practices, and their diverse background empower them and assess them in developing their learning literacy skills, taking into consideration the types of literacy that best work with diverse communities. 2 Northwest Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 11, Iss. 2 [2013], Art. 8 https://pdxscholar.library. pdx.edu/nwjte/vol11/iss2/8 DOI: 10.15760/nwjte.2013. 11.2. 8