Privación de la libertad como respuesta al delito

Pahl and Rowsell (2005) have argued that the link between literacy and identity allows literacy practices to construct identities that in turn shape literacy. In their recent studies, Pahl and Rowsell (2012) found that school and out- of school literacy practices “link with students’ evolving sense of themselves as cultural agents” (p. 119), and as readers, writers, or speakers (Moje, 2004). Studies on immigrant learners tend to highlight low literacy rates and poor school outcomes (Cooper, 2007; Brown, 2006, Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). For example, OSSLT outcomes highlight that compared to English proficient peers, more CLD students especially ELLs fail the test (EQAO, 2012). Despite the negative reports on CLD students’ literacy outcomes, school literacy curricula continue to alienate their funds of knowledge embedded in the cultural knowledge, L1, and migratory experiences, that Moll et al (1992) argue are important resources to bridge and extend learning for minoritized students, and offer them identities as capable learners.

Scholars such as Barton and Hamilton (2000), Heath and Street (2008), and Street (2004) working within the sociocultural framework have argued for a consideration of literacy as

social practices, that is, those everyday literacy activities of individuals, to address literacy learning and identity of CLD students. Other researchers such as Cummins (2000) have argued for the relevance of immigrant students’ multiple languages and identities in their cognitive, academic, and linguistic growth, that educators may take advantage of and present opportunities for positive identity re/construction for minority students (Cummins, 2005). Literacy therefore as Giroux (1991) argues,

becomes an enabling condition for forms of citizenship in which members of dominant and subordinate groups are offered subject positions ……., the opportunity to shape history in emancipatory terms rather than be the subject or object of its oppressive and colonizing practices ( p.1).

Cummins’s (2001; 2004; 2010) studies with minority children in North America emphasize the role of educators in enabling minoritized students’ participation in learning. In other collaborative studies with CLD elementary school children in Africa, Ireland, and North America (Cummins & Early, 2010; Stein, 2008) and in Canada (Cummins & Early, 2002; Cummins et al, 2005; Taylor, Bernard, Garg & Cummins, 2008) found that educators can create options to support students’ alternative expression such as through creation of multimodal,

“identity texts” which are defined as, the products of students’ creative work or performances carried out within the pedagogical space orchestrated by the

classroom teacher… [which] hold a mirror up to students in which their identities are reflected back in a positive light (Cummins, Bismilla, Chow, Cohen,

Giampapa, 2005, p. 5)

The notion of identity texts stresses that through creative approaches to literacy analysis and representation of text, students have options to approach reading from a diversity of approaches such as visual and performing Arts, creation of dolls, and dual language books with the support of their families. In their study with immigrant children Rowsell and Pahl (2007) found a strong connection between the texts and identities of the children who were the text makers. The children’s identities were “sedimented” in texts, that is, identities were related to the activities children engaged in as they created texts, such as

the choice of modes in meaning-making, and drawing on their historical and social locations.

Other studies have used the concept of figured worlds to demonstrate that classrooms can be understood as spaces with opportunities for possibility, resistance and negotiation of identities. In their studies with minoritized students, Bartlett (2007), Dagenais, Day, and Toohey (2006), Leander (2002), Wortham (2004), and Urietta (2007) found acts of positioning, labeling and assigning behaviours such as weak, disruptive and struggling by teachers shaped how students engaged in literacy learning. Additionally, Leander (2002) found that ridicule of minoritized students’ artefacts by peers who were privileged by the school literacy curriculum strained interaction with other students, limited participation and consequently constricted learning. Students accepted or resisted positioning with implications for literacy learning and learner identity. Bartlett’s (2007) study with youth and adult learners in Brazil found that the students refused to participate in literacy classrooms with teachers who ignored their socio political contexts and assigned them responsibility for their illiteracy. Assigning identity labels that disempowered the learner maintains the unequal power inherent in education and society (Cummins, 2001) and promotes social inequalities.

Bhabha (2004) and Hall (2000) argue that studies with immigrant and other minoritized communities cannot ignore the hegemonic post colonial structures which have shaped their experiences over time and are visible in hybrid identities. Furthermore, with the recognition of identity as fluid, and shifting with intercultural interaction and across difference, immigrant youth may choose to assimilate into practices of the dominant society for strategic positioning. That is, some youth change their literacy practices and adapt to those associated with western societies. They may occupy an in-between space and hop between cultures of home and host countries depending on various situations (Bhabha, 2004). Also, immigrant youth may reject positioning and join resistant groups like youth gangs (Stewart, 2010). They confront new cultures and spaces and negotiate new identities for opportunities to realize their selfhood (Bhabha, 1994). In

acknowledgement of the fluid nature of identity among newcomer youth, McLean (2010) recommends reflexivity with students who often equate “success and power with the process of becoming part of, being like, and being in the dominant group” (p.14) in order to support positive identity of these students.

Studies have highlighted the formation of hybrid identities when global and local identities of immigrant students converge (Moje, Ciechanowski, Kramer, Ellis, Carrillo, Collazo 2004; Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). In most cases the literacy practices of immigrant students blend into new hybrid practices which differ from those of school and home (Luke, 2003; Jones, 2000). Empowering classrooms afford learners positive identities and in so doing support language and literacy learning. Cummins (2004) and Moje and Luke (2009) identified that creating opportunities for positive identity formation and allowing student’s experiences and literacy practices in the classrooms, support literacy learning and positive identity reconstruction among the students, especially immigrant students who often face challenges of learning in new schools and sometimes in a new language. Immigrant students’ school and out-of-school literacy practices constitute important funds of knowledge.