Chapter 5 : Literacy at the Crossroads: Movement, Connection, and Communication With in the Research Literature on Literacy and Cultural Diversity

Abstract

Historically and into the present, dominant political interests within discussions of literacy policy have had a narrowing impact on what constitutes legitimate literacy practice. Dominant political interests that affirm prevailing relations of power promote what Royer (1994) refers to as literacy characteristics. Strong literacy conceives of literacy as a structurally singular, exclusively written language practice. When mentioned at all, cultural and linguistic diversity are taken up as threats to conceptual coherence. In other words, in the realm of mainstream literacy politics and policy, cultural diversity is seen as marginal, and even detrimental, to effective literacy conception and practice. While conceptions of literacy in mainstream literacy policy discussions rarely acknowledge cultural diversity, concerns involving cultural diversity often underlie the periodic emergence of mainstream efforts to codify literacy instruction and literary study (Buell, 1995; Clifford, 1988; Eagleton, 1983; Gates, 1985; Morrison, 1992; Resnick, 1991; Shannon, 1996; Visnawathan, cited in Buell, 1995; West, 1993; Willinsky, 1990). Scholars have documented historical patterns in both the United States and Britain wherein efforts to codify and implement strong text conceptions of literacy in schools predictably occur at moments when culture, class, and gender diversity are perceived as gaining in social influence. During these historical moments, advocates of conceptions of literacy predictably deploy a language of crisis (West, 1993) that equates cultural diversity with chaos and a threat to the social order. This crisis is politically mitigated by efforts to control the meaning of literacy, particularly through educational policy and school curricula that employ narrowly constructed definitions of literacy and literary interpretation (Resnick, 1991; Shannon, 1989b; West, 1993; Willinsky, 1990). This pattern appears at the very emergence of the discipline of English literature. Visnawathan (1989, cited in Buell, 1995) suggests that English literary study began not, as one might expect, in Britain but in India during much concern over undesired influences of Indian culture upon