The failure in the development of school literacy in children from Areas in Need of Social Transformation requires a better understanding of the processes that interfere in its development. Previous international research has shown the complexity of multimodal literacy, considered as dynamic, heterogeneous and of vernacular origin. Children between 0 and 8 years of age grow up surrounded by this multimodal literacy, and cohabit with it when they begin their schooling, at which point their own literacies come into conflict with school literacy.
The New Literacy Studies propose a sociocultural approach to literacy practices. This approach determines an ideological model, where new and heterogeneous ways of reading and writing are incorporated in our society in the 21st century. These social changes have led to understand child literacy as a spatial and collective practice, where literacy has to be analyzed as a reality "materialized" in artifacts, screens, embodiments and spaces.
Our research focuses on how children articulate space as a social practice and how they configure new social spaces through the materialization of literacy, constructed from children's interaction with artifacts, embodiments and screens. Our main objective is to propose an inclusive literacy model, where schools become social spaces, culturally negotiated, embodied and materialized by children.
This research analyzes the communicative and cultural practices of a group of children from low-income families in several urban settings in Seville (Andalusia, Spain). This purpose, together with the age of the participants (4 to 7 years old), has led us to a multimethodological and participatory design derived from collaborative ethnography.
The participants in this study are children from three schools between 4 and 7 years of age, their teachers and their families. The collection of information will be carried out from a multimethodological and collaborative approach, carried out both by the researchers and the participants themselves. The data analysis will be carried out through a process called co-analysis, which will allow the study of the social values of literacy practices.
This research project aims at improving the involvement of families in educational processes, in general, and literacy in Early Childhood Education, in particular. This improvement will be based on the strengthening of the sense of belonging to various communities (school, neighborhood, etc.) of children and their families, from the development of a collaborative research on the spaces of social interaction, and the materiality of the writing of children and their families.
Collaborative ethnography with participants in Areas in Need of Social Transformation will provide an in-depth understanding of how children's literacy develops in neighborhoods with low-income families and deeply affected by unemployment, lack of literate culture and accessibility to digital environments.
The project Improving Multimodal Literacy in Early Childhood (3-8 Years): Development of an Integrative Model in Areas in Need of Social Transformation (hereafter MATILDA, 2020-2023) proposes the research process as a way to alleviate those literacy issues that formal education cannot solve, as it focuses not only on students and their schools, but especially on their families and communities. In this sense, collaborative ethnography becomes a tool that seeks to connect communities through research. MATILDA aims to bring together international scientific impact and social impact through collaborative research in neighborhoods in areas characterized by high immigrant population, low income level and high risk of social exclusion.
With this sociomaterial approach to literacy, our research team aims to have a positive impact on improving early literacy in children aged 3 to 8 years and, therefore, literacy throughout schooling. Our project is clearly committed to the incorporation of vernacular literacies and multimodality as axes for the development of the personal and cultural identity of people who coexist in spaces where diverse socio-cultural, ethnic or linguistic communities coexist with the common denominator of poverty.
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