Discussion of Klassen & Burnaby and McKay & Weinstein-Shr: Beyond Assimilationist Literacy Policies and Practices

Abstract

The preceding articles by Burnaby and Klassen and by McKay and Weinstein-Shr help point out the disjunction between the assumptions underlying literacy policies and program practices and the experiences of those for whom-but frequently not with whomthey have been developed. These authors demonstrate that the key to understanding language and literacy policies is based upon deconstructing the common assumptions and contradictions which underlie policy formation and program practices. Both articles underscore the importance of ethnographic research as a means of informing policy, particularly regarding those students who would benefit from literacy instruction but who are not enrolled in any program. The examples cited demonstrate that because there is life, language, and literacy beyond the world of English, there are many reasons to acknowledge, maintain, and promote native-language literacy and biliteracy. McKay and Weinstein-Shr's brief historical discussion of language and literacy policies as instruments of gatekeeping offers one example of how these policies have functioned as instruments of social control (Leibowitz, 1974). I will add an interpretive commentary to McKay and Weinstein-Shr's historical discussion, before returning to the articles because an historical-structural approach (see Tollefson, 1991) helps to further understand this function of social control. It also provides a framework for understanding educational remedies as well as the experiences and problems of language minorities. Historical and contemporary English language and literacy policies can have a number of functions including representing responses of dominant groups to subordinate groups. Official policies and program practices are established through institutions controlled by dominant groups. Thus, the individual experiences of language minorities, as they attempt to acquire literacy and a second language, can also be understood within the context of struggles between groups with un-