[Announcement/Inscription] MODALITY/MATILDA Project Conference, Lancaster Literacy Research Center

Today, June 4, 2021, at 12.00 BST (UTC+1), the members of the LITERACIES research group (HUM 1044) Fernando Guzmán-Simón, Eduardo García-Jiménez and Alejandra Pacheco-Costa will give an online conference at the Lancaster Literacy Research Center on the project "Improving Multimodal Literacy in childhood (3-8 years old): development of an inclusive model in Areas in Need of Social Transformation (MATILDA/MODALITY)". More information and free registration at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/improvement-of-multimodal-literacy-in-childhood-tickets-139668168251

Abstract:

The failure at literacy development that the school system brings to children in Areas in Need of Social Transformation requires a thorough understanding of the processes that concur and interfere with it. Previous research in international contexts has highlighted the complexity of multimodal literacy, described as dynamic, heterogeneous and vernacular. Children aged 0-8 years grow up surrounded by this multimodal literacy and live with it as they begin their schooling, when their own literacies may conflict with school literacy.

The New Literacy Studies propose a sociocultural approach to literacy practices, an ideological model that encompasses new and heterogeneous ways of reading and writing in 21st century society. Current social changes have led to a concept of early childhood literacy understood as a spatial and collective practice, where literacy must be analyzed as a reality "materialized" in artifacts, screens, embodiments and spaces.

Our research focuses on the ways in which children articulate space as a social practice and how they construct new social spaces through the materialization of literacy, created through children's interaction with artifacts, embodiments, and screens. Our main objective is the proposal of an inclusive literacy model where schools become culturally negotiated social spaces, embodied and materialized by the students themselves.

This research analyzes the communicative and cultural practices of a group of children from low-income families in different urban contexts in Seville (Andalusia, Spain). Working in this environment, combined with the age of the participants (4 to 7 years old), led us to adopt a multimethodological and participatory design, derived from collaborative ethnography.

The participants are children from three different schools, aged 4 to 7, their teachers, and their families. The data collection method adopted is a multi-methodological and collaborative approach, carried out by the researchers and the participants themselves. Data analysis is done through co-analysis, which allows us to focus on the social values of literacy practices.

This research project aims to improve the participation of families in educational processes in general, and in literacy in Early Childhood Education in particular. The goal for this improvement is to strengthen the sense of belonging to different communities (school, neighborhood, etc.) of children and families, developed thanks to a collaborative research on the spaces of social interaction and the materialization of literacy in children and their families.