Multilingualism and multimodality current challenges for educational studies (Sense Publishers, 2013)
Includes bibliographical references and index
Multilingualism, multimodality and the future of education research - Ingrid de Saint-Georges -- - Multilingualism - Superdiverse repertoires and the individual - Jan Blommaert and Ad Backus -- - From Multilingual practices to social processes - Luisa Martín Rojo -- - Language, superdiversity and education - Adrian Blackledge, Angela Creese and Jaspreet Kaur Takhi -- - Multilingualism in Eu institutions - Ruth Wodak -- - Multilingual Universities and the Monolingual mindset - Jean-Jacques Weber and Kristine Horner -- - Multimodality - Recognizing learning - Gunther Kress -- - Multimodality and digital technologies in the classroom - Carey Jewitt -- - Power, miscommunication and cultural diversity - Laurent Filliettaz, Stefano Losa and Barbara Duc -- - Geographies of discourse - Ron Scollon
In the social sciences and humanities, researchers often qualify the period in which we are living as late-modern, post-modern or superdiverse. These terms seek to capture changing conditions and priorities brought about by a new social order. This social order is characterized, among other traits, by an increased visibility of social, cultural and linguistic diversity, arising out of unprecedented migration and mobility patterns. It is also associated with the development of information and communication technologies, which in the digital era transform communication patterns, identities, relationships and possibilities for action. For education, these late-modern conditions create numerous interesting challenges, given that they are of course reflected in the classroom and other sites of learning. Conditions of superdiversity mean that, in educational institutions, varied practices, linguistic repertoires, and symbolic resources come into contact, posing questions about how institutions and actors choose to deal with this diversity. Likewise, digital technologies with their possibilities for assembling and using multimodal texts in new ways transform the learning experience, redefining what counts as teaching, learning, knowledge, or assessment. By providing careful analyses of policies and interactions in superdiverse, technologically complex, educational contexts, the authors of this volume contribute something important: they give a shape a semiotic form to some of the issues raised by transnational migration, sociocultural diversity, and digital complexity. They construct a framework for reflecting about the new social order and its impact on education. They also reveal the kinds of new questions and new terrains that can and must be explored by linguistic research if it wants to stay relevant for education in these times of change