Multimodal Literacy through Children’s Drawings in a Romani Community

Abstract

Being part of an ethnographic research project, which investigated the funds of knowledge and literacy practices of a Romani community in northwestern Romania, this paper presents an exploratory examination, seeking ways to understand drawings and sketches as multimodal texts produced by five Romani children in this community. In general, Romani people, living on the margins of society, have often been labeled illiterate and been discriminated against. The examination of these Romani children’s drawings and sketches illuminated two features of their multimodal literacy practices— intertextuality and design—and scrutinized the stereotype of illiteracy thrust upon the Romani people. Based on the examination of the multimodal literacy practices of these Romani children, implications are drawn, including pedagogical applications, and future research directions are suggested.