Globalizing English through Intercultural Critical Literacy

Jamie Myers and Fredrik Eberfors

Globalizing English through Intercultural

Critical Literacy

D

igital technologies in English classrooms have broadened represen-tation and communication as students construct their cultural identities through video, music, text-messaging, computer gaming, YouTube, Second Life, Twitter, and Facebook. Juxtaposed to this globalizing communication, students in English classrooms typically experience text meaning as an au-thorized interpretation, driven by school practices of evaluation that depend on “right” answers and by the shared cultural perspective typical in a class of students who grow up together in a local community. Just as many students are especially adept at navigating the web of global texts, they also learn to negotiate textual meaning from multiple cultural frames in an increasingly complicated and often contested global flow of communication. Luke and Carrington (2004) call this global interaction of local cultural frames of interpretation “glocalisation,” and they advocate for an increased aware-ness of how values and beliefs from globally originating frames of meaning transact with local values and beliefs (p. 61). Thus, the challenge of English teacher educators is to generate thinking practices in which students recog-nize their local cultural frames, identify other cultural frames of meaning, and negotiate these multiple global frames of interpretation to make sense of local texts, activities, values, and identities.

As English teacher educators in the United States and Sweden who prepare students to become teachers of language arts and literature, we seek to generate “glocal” interpretations and identities by using an online Web-based discussion forum. In the Short Story Forum, we asked students to share their responses to a short story and then to query each other on how their interpretations reflected cultural values and beliefs. We especially

wanted students to get beyond national identities and local discourses, and we believed that the online interactions with global discussants provided an opportunity to experience different perspectives to reflect on, and complicate, local cultural assumptions that often remain invisible when interpreting a text within a primary discourse community. To achieve what Jewett (2007) defines as a critical literacy practice, we hoped that students would “move beyond their personal responses and examine the ways that their responses, as well as the texts they read, have been socially constructed by the systems in which they live and by which they have been shaped” (p. 152).

In this article, we analyze the consequences of the discussion forum for students’ interpretive practices and describe the theoretical and research basis for globalizing English classrooms through an intercultural critical literacy practice. An intercultural critical literacy with mass-distributed print and media texts is essential in our increasingly multicultural and glocalized lives in which our acts of language, literacy, and media create divisions and dislikes, instead of providing opportunities to negotiate shared meaning and value through cultural differences. Aiding in the construction of global citizens and intercultural speakers extends English teaching beyond writing skills and discourse conventions, allowing students to explore how culture is negotiated in global and local communications to transform glo-cal identities and relationships. Banks (2004) notes, “Although it is essential that all students acquire basic skills in literacy, basic skills are necessary but not sufficient in our diverse and troubled world. Literate citizens in a diverse democratic society should be reflective, moral, and active citizens in an interconnected global world” (p. 298).

While students and teachers may read materials about another cul-ture’s traditions and language, or even books written by authors from diverse cultures, to become active citizens in an interconnected world they must participate in interpretive interactions with members of other cultures to construct a critical understanding of how texts signify multiple meanings when framed by different cultural identities. Shor (1999) claims that such “language use that questions the social construction of the self” exemplifies critical literacy (p. 2). “When we are critically literate, we examine our on-going development, to reveal the subjective positions from which we make sense of the world and act in it. All of us grow up and live in local cultures set in global contexts where multiple discourses shape us. Neighborhood life and schooling are two formidable sites where the local and global converge” (Shor, 1999, p. 2). The World Wide Web has likewise become a formidable site for the global convergence of discourses. Audiences with different frames of interpretation interact on the Internet. Globally distributed texts offer layers

of possible meaning, each layer signified within different cultural discourses that frame a particular valued message. Engaging students in online discus-sion with global partners can generate an increased awareness of multiple subject positions from which students can frame future interactions. Hall and Piazza (2008) state, “As students learn how to engage in critical literacy, they also become more aware of their views and how their views influence their interpretations of texts and interactions with people. Students can

be-gin to take greater control over how they position themselves and each other while transforming their everyday lives” (p. 32).

This study features the characteristics of such an intercultural critical literacy practice constructed through global interactions in a Web discussion forum. The participants were undergraduate language teacher education stu-dents enrolled in language methods classes at their home U.S. and Swedish universities. These universities had established a partnership for faculty and student exchange eight years prior to this Web forum project, and this study was one of several Web forum projects across six European and U.S. universities participating in a larger funded project to develop intercultural critical literacy practices among students in literacy education, technology, and communications majors.

Defining Intercultural Critical Literacy

Synthesizing the ideas of critical literacy and intercultural competence into an intercultural critical literacy practice relevant to a glocalised English classroom requires a review of definitions for critical literacy and inter-cultural competence, with particular attention to their overlapping and underlying theoretical bases. The idea of critical literacy is commonplace in reading and language education and has had several extensive reviews over the past two decades (Beck, 2005; Behrman, 2006; Cervetti, Pardales, & Damica, 2001; Fairclough, 1992; Gee, 1992; Fehring & Green, 2001; Iyer, 2007; Lankshear & McClaren, 1993; Morgan, 1997; Shor, 1999; Stevens & Bean, 2007). The idea of intercultural competence is likewise quite common, although perhaps more recent, in second language education, where it is often used to argue that second language learning requires constructing a new cultural identity in an “intercultural speaker,” rather than just trans-mitting and reproducing linguistic structures in second language learning (Byram, 1997; Byram, Nichols, & Stevens, 2001; Lundgren, 2002; Phipps & Guilherme, 2004).

Engaging students in online

discussion with global partners

can generate an increased

aware-ness of multiple subject positions

from which students can frame

future interactions.

Conceptions of critical literacy and intercultural competence define language and culture as mutually shaping (Kress, 1988). This shaping takes place because textual and symbolic representations are ideological rather than isomorphic with a transcendent reality. Thus culture infuses a text with meaning, and texts in turn extend and reify cultural ideologies. Behrman (2006) states, “As a theory, critical literacy espouses that education can fos-ter social justice by allowing students to recognize how language is affected by and affects social relations. Among the aims of critical literacy are to have students examine the power relationships inherent in language use, recognize that language is not neutral, and confront their own values in the production and reception of language” (p. 490). Our goals of critical literacy and intercultural competence in the Web forum project were especially focused on making visible a student’s cultural values as part of a reflective consciousness that considers how acts of communication can shape more just and equitable social identities and relations (Friere & Macedo, 1987; Furstenberg, 2003; Morgan, 1997).

The concepts of critical literacy and intercultural competence also rely on a definition of literacy as socially constructed practice. Greene (1993) describes how literacy is a contested concept, defined often by educators as a set of specific cognitive language skills to be directly taught to illiterate people and at other times as an ability to use a script in a particular social context to accomplish a specific cultural goal. Street’s (1984) distinction between autonomous and ideological definitions of literacy is especially useful in understanding how the purposes and functions that texts serve are themselves culturally determined and not inherent or autonomous psy-cholinguistic practices (Scribner & Cole, 1981; Siegel & Fernandez, 2000).

The autonomous definition is important to examine here because its prevailing influence in English classrooms locates meaning within the text, thus reducing the opportunities for making cultural frames of refer-ence more visible (Gee, 1992). Those who hold an autonomous definition for literacy embrace an ideology of objectivity and truth correspondence, and they potentially ignore the ideological frame of positivism that estab-lishes autonomous and authoritative texts and ideas (Cherryholmes, 1988). From an autonomous definition, reading and writing are generic linguistic activities that can be broken down into component skills, taught in direct instruction, rehearsed, and then applied across cultural contexts. Because language use is understood as separate from cultural beliefs and values, as an intrinsic and autonomous linguistic object, writers and readers invest particular symbols with inherent meaning and argue these meanings from a transcendent definitional standpoint across cultural perspectives. And,

because the cultural background of readers and writers is fairly homogenous in most local school classrooms, the narrow range of interpretations for any text may contribute to a conclusion that texts can hold specific and correct meanings, adding to the invisibility of a culturally constructed discourse as the framing structure for meaning. Thus, an autonomous definition of lit-eracy can hide the cultural contexts in which language activities constitute particular identities, values, and skills. An autonomous definition of mean-ing also underlies globalized capitalism and colonization through the mass mediation of texts and symbols meant to distribute uniform meanings about “true” human experience and desire. In a glocalized English classroom, intercultural critical literacy practices require students to examine cultural beliefs and values that frame text meaning and thus negotiate multiple “par-tial” cultural truths: “In dealing with the social and cultural orientations of language, and through this with the political nature of language, critical literacy moves beyond the textual, to questions of ideology” (Iyer, 2007, p. 163). An intercultural critical literacy seeks to engage an examination of ideologies as the purpose for reading and writing activity.

The ideological position that literacy is not a generalized psychologi-cal activity, but instead a social practice that dialectipsychologi-cally constructs the purpose, value, meaning, and the linguistic skills of a particular ideology-activity, is based on the fundamental proposition of Vygotsky (1981) that “the very mechanism underlying higher mental functions is a copy from social interaction” (p. 164). In their study of Vai literacies, Scribner and Cole (1981) confirm that reading and writing activities are socially constructive of literacy skills: “Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and write a particular script but applying this knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use. The nature of these practices, including, of course, their technological aspects, will determine the kinds of skills (‘consequences’) associated with literacy” (p. 236). As Kern (2003) notes, “Because it is purpose-sensitive, literacy is dynamic—not static—and variable across and within discourse communities and cultures” (p. 48). Repositioning literate skills as consequences of the cultural purposes for language activity in local discourses establishes a theoretical foundation for pedagogies that seek to construct a literacy practice that includes the explicit purpose of a critical awareness of how ideologies frame meanings in glocal interactions.

Every literacy is learnt in a specific context in a particular way and the modes of learning, the social relationships of student to teacher are modes of socialization and acculturation. The student is learning cultural models of identity and personhood, not just how to decode script or to write a par-ticular hand. If that is the case, then leaving the critical process off until

after they have learnt many of the genres of literacy used in that society is putting off, possibly for ever, the socialization into critical perspective. (Street, 1995, p. 140)

Two points are important: First, the attribution of the word critical to definitions of literacy most always involves an increased level of awareness or consciousness of the cultural contexts that dialectically shape acts of com-munication. Second, since literacy practices are not inherently or necessarily critical, to achieve a critical literacy practice, it is absolutely necessary that the participants, or pedagogies, guiding the symbolic interaction have an explicitly critical purpose. Knickerbocker and Rycik (2006) describe how these two points can be achieved in a critical approach to literature study in middle level schools:

As they interact with new people and new ideas, young adolescents become increasingly aware of their own assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes. They also become increasingly able to examine how they have been influenced by social institutions and the people around them. In short, young adoles-cents are ready to become more aware of culture. . . . A critical literacy approach requires that students are guided to reflect on, discuss, and write about the insights that literature gives them about their world and their relationships to others. (p. 46)

Second language educators have also called for organizing instruc-tion around a definiinstruc-tion of literacy that includes an awareness of how texts can function in constructing cultural practices and ideologies. For Byram, Nichols, and Stevens (2001), the intercultural speaker has “a willingness to relativise one’s own values, beliefs and behaviours, not to assume that they are the only possible and naturally correct ones, and to be able to see how they might look from the perspective of an outsider who has a different set of values, beliefs and behaviours” (p. 5). In proposing an educational goal for an intercultural speaker over the previous goal for a native speaker, Kramsch (1998) explains how students’ linguistic products, or meanings, are cultural products that reflect their different “life experiences, ethnicity, social and economic background, attitudes and beliefs” (p. 28). Byram et al.’s (2001) definition of an intercultural speaker further parallels defini-tions of critical literacy by identifying a speaker who has a conscious ability to transform cultural practices by using language from “a position which

acknowledges respect for human dignity and equality of human rights as the democratic basis for social interaction” (p. 7; emphasis original). Lundgren

(2002) characterizes an intercultural speaker as one who would seek critical cultural awareness and active global citizenship, repudiate ethnocentrism, and develop a deepened solidarity with others.

These theories emphasize a glocal identity frame for communica-tion and require a pedagogy that goes beyond learning “about” a culture’s rituals and histories to engage learners in interactions to create a reflective experience on the dialectic between language and culture: “The responsibility of the language teacher is to teach culture as it is mediated

through language, not as it is studied by social

scientists and anthropologists” (Kramsch, 1998, p. 31; emphasis original). Freire and Macedo (1987) emphasize that reading and writing the world, or explicating the identities, values, and goals in cultural activities, must precede and accompany learning to read and write the word. English curricula should provide opportunities for globally diverse students to interact in order to experience their cultural discourse as just one of many potential contexts for the meaning of a text.

By centering the discussion around student voices and concerns, critical literacy teachers acknowledge that students arrive in the classroom with a wide range of experiences behind them that influence the meaning-making process, and these teachers believe that reflecting on how experiences shape their interpretations is the first step toward critical awareness. In order to facilitate this reflection, critical literacy teachers establish a supportive environment in which students can participate in thoughtful exchanges with one another that will lead them to new and richer under-standings of first personal, and later social, issues. (Beck, 2005, p. 394) A critical pedagogy, therefore, must first center itself within each lit-eracy practice, then invite students to reflexively consider how texts function within the context of that discourse-practice to construct value for particular identities and issues. Kramsch and Andersen (1999) describe a gap between a text and its context that allows the texts to be framed by different discourses to signify multiple meanings, thus allowing cultural participants to enact different social practices. Wallace (2002) defines critical reading as the act of gaining some distance between texts and the social circumstances of their production to allow for the consideration of alternative meanings from dif-ferent discourses. She also cautions that “the ability to engage in this level of critical analysis is not easily achieved” (p. 108). The New London Group (1996) argues that even if readers are able to accomplish this distance and use the gap between text and discourse to engage in critique, “they might still be incapable of reflexively enacting their knowledge in practice” (p. 82). They describe how two dominant language pedagogies may fail to generate

English curricula should

provide opportunities for globally

diverse students to interact in

order to experience their cultural

discourse as just one of many

potential contexts for the

meaning of a text.

“critical understanding or cultural understanding. In fact, both immersion and many sorts of Overt Instruction are notorious as socializing agents that can render learners quite uncritical and unconscious of the cultural locat-edness of meanings and practices” (p. 83). Opening this gap between text and context to establish an intercultural critical literacy practice was the challenging goal of the Short Story Forum analyzed below.

Intercultural Critical Literacy Practice in the Short Story Forum

The critical pedagogy used in this study combined an immersion experience of open response to a shared reading with the overt direction to students to make explicit and discuss the cultural beliefs and values that framed their responses to reading and discussion. The reading and responding took place in a Web-based asynchronous discussion forum project entitled Short Story Forum and included 10 U.S. and 32 Swedish English education students who read Carrie A. Young’s (1994) short story titled “Adjö Means Good-bye.” This story is told from the point of view of an older woman reflecting on the events surrounding her friendship in elementary school with a Swedish immigrant girl, Margot. After being best friends for months, the narrator is suddenly rejected by Margot at Margot’s birthday party, and there is some ambiguity as to Margot’s mother’s role in the ending of their friendship. Not until the birthday party is the narrator’s racial identity made explicit in the story, and it becomes the implied cause for her rejection.

The students were given one set of directions in the forum as a prompt to guide their discussion activity:

Go to the Discussion Area and read the comments that have been posted about the story. Post your own comment as a new thread, or as a reply to someone else. After everyone has posted, read the responses in the discus-sion area. Choose one post and analyze the response based on the follow-ing question: “What cultural values or beliefs are communicated by the response?” In a reply to that post, describe the cultural values/beliefs you have identified in that response.

Note that the directions explicitly ask the students to identify cultural values and beliefs that might frame an interpretation about the story or a response posted in the discussion. While the direction has an “other” focus—encourag-ing the identification of cultural values and beliefs in others’ postfocus—encourag-ings—the pedagogical intent is the self-examination or reflection on one’s own cultural values, beliefs, and practices. We hoped that the reflection would take the form of a critique of one’s own cultural frames of reference, although the directions did not specify such critiquing activity. We believed that

confront-ing personal values and beliefs is an essential activity in the construction of an intercultural critical literacy practice.

Over 10 days of discussion on the Short Story Forum, the 42 students logged in 231 times and posted 99 messages as they created 15 discussion threads about the short story. The discourse analysis applied to the students’ posts in the Web forum is based on a semiotic model of meaning in which a sign stands for another sign in some respect or capacity (Eco, 1979, p. 180). This respect, or capacity, is a third sign that frames, or contextualizes, the interpretation of a text, thus preventing any transcendent or fixed meaning between a sign (a text, for example) and its object meaning (the text’s mean-ing). Meaning is always mediated by third signs that carry the underlying ideologies of participants. Within this study, third signs included cultural identities, values, and beliefs that participants used to mediate an interpre-tation about the short-story text, or to mediate the meaning of the others’ responses/replies in the discussion. Thus, data analysis sought instances when participants made references in their postings to a cultural belief or value that mediated (or grounded, framed, or contextualized) interpreta-tions about the story or each other’s responses. Explicit mediainterpreta-tions, in which a cultural value was questioned after being identified as framing an interpretation, were defined as evidence of greater conscious awareness of a cultural basis for meaning, and thus an instance of an intercultural criti-cal literacy practice.

Our analysis revealed five patterns of mediation that highlight varying degrees of explicit identification and critique of cultural beliefs and values in the online discussion:

1. asserting (or confirming another’s response) an idea about the

events, actions, identities, or practices in the story;

2. comparing to how people in own culture might act in a similar way; 3. exploring possible beliefs and values that might contextualize

cul-tural identities or actions, diversify the meaning of the identities or actions, or explain why or how cultural practices exist;

4. seeking comparative information about cultural practices or beliefs

and possible explanations for identities and actions from other cul-tures; and

5. posing self-reflective questions or problems about one’s cultural

practices, how practices shape beliefs and values, and how identities and actions might be transformed.

Patterns 1 and 2 represented statements that were primarily assertions about the characters or events in the story; while these interpretations were medi-ated by underlying cultural beliefs and values, the students did not make them explicit in these statements. Patterns 3 and 4 represented statements in which students did explicate mediating cultural values, beliefs, practices, or contexts to contextualize ideas in the story or in others’ responses. Pattern 5 represented those statements in which participants explicitly reflected on their own cultural practices, beliefs, or values and best represented the interactions of an intercultural critical literacy practice.

Table 1 below summarizes the 15 discussion threads by reporting the number of posts in each thread and the number of statements coded for each of the five patterns derived from the analysis. Since a single post might contain multiple statements coded for different patterns, the number of posts and coded statements in each thread may not correspond.

Table 1. Discussion Thread Coding Results

Thread # of posts: United States/ Sweden Pattern 1: assert event Pattern 2: similar culture Pattern 3: explain with values Pattern 4: seek new values Pattern 5: problem values Adjö min vän 1: 0/1 1

Race as a construction of fear 2: 1/1 1 2 “Different” people in the same

area 3: 1/2 1 2 1 2 The story 3: 0/3 3 Strange story 3: 1/2 1 3 1 Typo? 4: 2/2 2 2 1 Situation in Reverse 4: 3/1 1 1 3 1 1 Classmates 5: 1/4 4 1 2

Has the author changed? 7: 4/3 1 2 4

Good Story 7: 2/5 2 5

Problem of Southern United States

8: 4/4 2 4 6

Thoughts about the

flower-man? 10: 4/6 2 7 1

Coward 11: 5/6 2 1 7 1 2

Lovestory! 13: 3/10 3 3 6 2 5

Checkmate 18: 3/15 4 6 9 2 4

To illustrate the characteristics of these five mediating patterns, excerpts from the “Checkmate” and “Lovestory!” discussion threads are examined below. As the two longest threads, they also contain at least two examples of each mediating pattern. Because of space constraints, each thread was reduced from its full original length by dropping posts in which students primarily confirmed prior responses in the thread, actions catego-rized as Pattern 1.

Headline: Checkmate From: Louise (Sweden)

I think the picture of pawns in a lifegame controlled by others without own active participation says a lot about the way kids/people adapt thoughts and prejudices even though they in their heart have another meaning.

Headline: Checkmate From: William (U.S.A.)

I agree that a lot of times children get stuck doing what their parents do even though their hearts aren’t in it. But these are 6th-graders, and ado-lescence has started for them. My sister rebels against her parents over things like makeup, car privileges, boyfriends, dress code, etc. Obviously racism is a different sort of beast. What makes it so hard to resist this sort of thing? Why is it harder for an adolescent to tell his/her parents that they’re wrong about their best friend than it is to tell them they’re wrong about makeup, dress code, or boy/girlfriends?

In the first post above, Louise highlights the author’s symbolic use of pawns in the story to claim that people are “controlled by others.” Her comments suggest a cultural practice that people will adopt “thoughts and prejudices” contrary to their inner values, but she doesn’t reflect on why this practice exists within her cultural experience. This is characteristic of Pattern 1, making an assertion without explicating the underlying value basis of the idea.

William’s response illustrates Pattern 2 in his first sentence as he compares the cultural practice identified by Louise to his culture in which children “get stuck doing what their parents do,” even if they believe differ-ently. As his response continues, he explores this shared intercultural practice by contextualizing it in his life experience with his sister’s adolescent rebel-lion. William accepts that in some cases children are compelled to follow their parents, while in others, they intentionally act against their parents. This illustrates Pattern 3 as he proposes an explanation that diversifies the initial generalization that “kids/people” adopt the thoughts and prejudices of others. While William does not question why adolescents might rebel, he does ask why some aspects of life are outwardly resisted while others are followed compliantly. His question is characteristic of Pattern 5, directing

the discussion toward reflection about the underlying beliefs and values that might support differential cultural practices of rebellion versus compliance.

Karin’s response to William below seeks to explain why children might comply with their parents’ beliefs in the case of racism. She begins by offering a contextualizing explanation for why children do not rebel against racism.

Headline: Checkmate From: Karin (Sweden)

I tihink you got a good taugt there! Can´t it be that rasism is something that young kids don´t understand? Its hard to rebell against something that you don´t fully now the meaning of. Sadly many kids also adapt their parents values, wether they´re right or not. Thats something for our gen-eration to think about!

The explanation that some children don’t understand racism is characteristic of Pattern 3 because Karin offers a reason for their actions, but she doesn’t reflect on the cultural conditions that might prevent their understanding of racism. However, characteristic of Pattern 5, Karin’s challenge in her final sentence—“Thats something for our generation to think about!”—poses a critical problem about the cultural practice of children adapting parental values that she believes must be transformed.

John replies by confirming (Pattern 1) the cultural practice that “many children/adolescents follow the beliefs of their parents” in the United States, drawing a comparison between the two cultures (Pattern 2). Then he recontextualizes Karin’s explanation of why rebellion may not exist by suggesting that it happens around a certain age (Pattern 3), and he seeks cultural comparisons on the issue of adolescent rebellion at a particular age in Sweden (Pattern 4).

Headline: Checkmate From: John (U.S.A.)

In a lot of the postings, I have noticed that many children/adolescents fol-low the beliefs of their parents. I think that happens a lot in the US too, but as William had mentioned, we also have the idea of rebellion over here. Stereotypically, this seems to occur more towards the adolescent years. Is this common in Sweden at all? Is there a typical age that kids begin to question their parent’s values?

John’s post illustrates how the patterns of mediation did not occur in a simple linear fashion but in a more cyclical fashion, as students in the forum made claims about identities and practices, explored variations within the context of their life experiences, and posed questions about possible underlying ex-planations in terms of shared and diverse cultural beliefs and values. While

John notes the stereotype of adolescent rebellion in the United States and asks about any presence of rebellion in Sweden, he doesn’t question why rebellion happens or explicate how it functions within a culture to enact desired identities and relationships.

Erik’s response to John mediates the question of rebellion with a pos-sible underlying cause that it is easier to argue about clothes than deeper values such as the racism represented in the short story. This contextualizing is characteristic of Pattern 3, but simultaneously Pattern 2 because Erik confirms the earlier assertion about rebellion as similar in Swedish culture.

Headline: Checkmate From: Erik (Sweden)

Well, I think it is more or less the same here in Sweden too, given the im-pression I have from the states. But as someone else remarked: It seems to be easier to argue about clothes and curfews then over more deeper values. While Erik’s response does not offer explicit cultural analysis of why it might be harder for teens to argue over “more deeper values,” it may, by its repetition of the assertion, offer the discussion an opening for intercultural critical thinking about how and why this cultural practice of rebellion is formed. William begins his response below to Erik with wondering about “cultural reasons behind our own views of how children learn about racial differences.” This is a clear example of a Pattern 5 mediation about the cultural values and beliefs that frame the group’s interpretations about children’s learning.

Headline: Checkmate From: William (U.S.A.)

I wonder if there are cultural reasons behind our own views of how chil-dren learn about racial differences. In America, you become an adult when you take control and become responsible for your own life and choices. So adolescents are encouraged by the media (especially TV) to rebel against their parents and form their own identity by doing their own thing. But in many cultures, adulthood is not determined by autonomy and inde-pendence, but by age and ritual. Adolescents reach a certain age, they go through a ritual, and then they’re an “adult,” but they have no autonomy; they do their fathers’ or mothers’ jobs, believe what their parents believe, and live as their parents live. The values of the whole population are pre-served; there is less individualism and autonomy. Iran is such a country; Germany and South Korea used to be. I’m not sure how Sweden is. William defines adulthood in America, an assertion about the current conditions of life in a culture (Pattern 1), then explains the role of the media in promoting rebellion and the construction of teen identity,

contextual-izing how the practice of being a teen is constructed (Pattern 3). He then shares his belief about other cultures and how they experience the passage through adolescence to adulthood, seeking comparative information about the cultural practice in Sweden (Pattern 4). He explains his belief about how cultural values might be preserved in cultures/countries in which adolescent identity closely follows parental identity because the underlying values for autonomy and independence from the family are not as strong. While he does not engage in extensive self-reflection on his beliefs about autonomy and independence and how they are culturally constructed, his questions about cultural practices in the United States (Pattern 5) push the discussion to identify the underlying values and beliefs in the enculturation of children into adulthood, and he directly invites the Swedish students to reflect on these underlying forces in their own cultural experience. Stina and Kristin both take up this invitation.

Headline: Checkmate From: Stina (Sweden)

I do agree about what William says when children have to become audults with responsibuility. You wondered if it is the same in Sweden. . . . And it is. . . . We become like small adults when we do our parents jobs and we have to take much more responsibuility of our actions. . . . It´s important to hold on to the fact that children has to be children for a long time. . . . As an adult you have to teach them what is right or wrong in this world but also teach them that we are all the same, no matter what colour our skin is. . . .

Headline: Checkmate From: Kristin (Sweden)

but the problem is that every parent have different ideas of what is right and wrong and you can\t stop them from bringing up their children in the way that they consider is the right way, even if it is terribly wrong to you and me.

Stina suggests that it is the same in Sweden; however, her response that children are “like small adults” who take on parents’ jobs and responsibilities is ambiguous on how any underlying values for independence or autonomy might influence or shape the Swedish practice of becoming an adult. In tak-ing on adult responsibilities, she doesn’t explain if Swedish children need the autonomy and independence expressed through teen rebellion. However, Stina is self-reflective when she makes explicit her belief that children learn “what is right or wrong in this world,” and that humans are all the same re-gardless of skin color. As she mediates the cultural practices of enculturation and racism in terms of her own beliefs and values, she illustrates Pattern 5 in suggesting how she and others can transform future practices of prejudice in Swedish culture by teaching children the right values.

Kristin’s response to Stina poses a critical problem for transforming future cultural practices of racism and education. Kristin introduces two beliefs: right and wrong can be different for different people within the same culture, and parents have a right to bring up their children “in the way that they consider is the right way, even if it is terribly wrong to you and me.” By juxtaposing these two beliefs to mediate the question about the “cultural reasons behind our own views of how children learn about racial differences” initiated earlier by William, Kristin explicitly identifies cultural values that are in conflict and must be examined and negotiated at a more conscious level to transform the cultural practices of enculturation, adolescence, and racism in the United States and Sweden.

Stina and Kristin mediated the cultural practices of racism and edu-cation to arrive at actions that might transform or entrench the cultural identities and actions related to racism. When the students posed issues such as how a culture deals with differences of belief about what is right and wrong, even without solutions or agreement, then they engaged in self-analysis or critique of their belief structures and life contexts that is the critiquing goal of an intercultural critical literacy practice. Certainly, the students could have pushed this discussion to greater depth concerning the conflict of parental values versus school or societal values, and which should be privileged. What is important is that the students engaged in contextual-izing their interpretations by identifying, seeking, and questioning possible cultural values and beliefs to explain the story and their responses to the story, thus constructing an intercultural critical literacy practice that might continue in future interactions.

There was no evidence in the forum postings that the students criticized the beliefs and values of students from other cultures. Without specific direc-tion to not criticize, the students enacted a discourse practice that valued

difference within and across cultural identities. This may be characteristic of a school-sponsored discussion implicitly monitored by teachers, but it also may indicate that the students were rooted in the top two stages of Banks’s (2004) six-stage typology for cultural development. At the fifth stage, individuals “have clarified reflective, and positive personal, cultural, and national identifications and positive attitudes toward other racial, cultural, and ethnic groups” (p. 302). And, at the top stage, “the primary commitment of these individuals is to justice, not to any human community” (p. 302). The forum discussions provided an opportunity for the students to develop reflective positions about their own cultural

identi-Without specific direction to not

criticize, the students enacted

a discourse practice that valued

difference within and across

cultural identities.

ties by clarifying their cultural beliefs and values in discussion with others. Throughout the responses seemed to be a concern for justice and universal human rights, particularly against the racism represented within the short story, and in support of children and adults in their own communities who enacted equity over prejudice.

The intercultural critical literacy practice we sought to construct in the Short Story Forum went beyond the achievement of an intercultural competence in a second language to the critique of cultural beliefs and values as a purpose for interpretive discussions. Our goal was how an ex-amination of the “other” could generate a greater awareness of the “self,” thus producing a critiquing negotiation of the multiple self-other cultural frames of meaning. Sercu (1998) describes a similar goal with an inservice project for teachers in Belgium: “The attainment target of intercultural lan-guage teaching is ‘critical understanding of otherness.’ A first condition for acquiring this ability is that one gains some insight into one’s own culture and into the conditions of observation” (p. 261).

While Sercu (1998) asserts a need for greater insight into one’s own culture to achieve insight into other cultures, it is most likely that greater consciousness of the self and the other is dialectically constructed in both directions within a critical intercultural literacy practice. This going back and forth between the self and the other, perhaps the essence of a glocal critical literacy practice, was evident in the “Short Story Forum” discussions.

Explicit Pedagogical Instructions in Online Forums about

Literature

A key issue for English teachers who use online discussion forums is the degree to which teachers provide explicit instructions for the type of posts and replies expected from participants. Groenke (2008) found that preser-vice English teachers bring into online discussions their own histories of teacher-directed classroom discussion practices. In her study of small-group literature discussions between middle school students and preservice English teachers, a critical stance toward literature was evidenced in one group that posed a question about how their gender as readers might influence their interpretations. This interaction evidenced “the idea that readers’ inter-pretations of texts are not neutral but are shaped by the different purposes readers bring to texts, their varying social contexts, and their experiences as people with different identities. Understanding that one’s response to a text is not neutral is certainly a first step in developing critical literacy” (p. 231). However, Groenke (2008) claims that the preservice teacher who facilitated

this group discussion missed a key opportunity for the middle school students to further explore their questions about gender stance when she directed the students to move on to a new topic. The literacy practice they enacted did not include an explicit analysis of their interpretations in terms of their cultural values and identities.

Groenke (2008) recommends “the need for beginning teachers to have opportunities to see alternatives to reading instruction and for safe spaces where preservice teachers can practice taking on a critical stance toward young adult literature” (p. 232). Students typically expect the study of litera-ture to involve taking notes about the author’s life, identifying the symbols and themes embedded in the text, and describing how the plot and characters interact to develop each other to the inevitable end. This form of literary analysis is not necessarily problematic except when it becomes an end in itself and does not move the student into thinking about the literature in terms of their own and others’ cultural identities, relationships, and values. In the Short Story Forum, the discussion instructions did not constrain students’ responses to a close literary analysis of the short-story text. Only a few of the discussion threads even included comments about literary elements. For example, in the sequence below of five posts from the “Love- story!” thread, Ami proposes how the author’s style and descriptions help to achieve the author’s intent by the end of the story. Betty and Steve respond, not by engaging the typical literary analysis question, but by turning the conversation toward the exploration of cultural assumptions about how stories should end (Patterns 3 and 5), and how intimacy and friendship are portrayed and experienced in other cultures (Pattern 4).

Headline: Lovestory! From: Ami (Sweden)

I think that Adjö means Good-bye was heartbreaking to read.I agree with all the comments about the girls being like bricks in an adult game but the thing that really moved me was the way the author portrayed her friend,Marget. The first paragraphs in the story could easily be discriptions from a lovestory.The author describes her friend, despite what later was to happend,with such admiration and love. This makes the ending so much harder to accept. The harder you love, the harder you fall!

Headline: Lovestory! From: Betty (U.S.A.)

I agree with your view about the ending being hard to accept. I wonder if it is the way we are raised to believe that all stories should have happy endings. I know almost all the movies I have ever seen end on a positive note. Perhaps this is true everywhere? Do happy endings “make the world go round?” Any suggestions?

Headline: Lovestory! From: Steve (U.S.A.)

I agree that the beginning sounded like a love story. This makes me wonder about how friendships are portrayed in different cultures. In the U.S., I think that we stray away from intimacy. Do you think there may be closer friendships in other cultures where there is not such a fear of intimacy in friendship?

Ami and Kristin reply below by engaging the question of intimacy across cultures. While they may disagree about the role of cultural beliefs and values in one’s expression of intimacy, they take up self-reflective positions in which they clarify their own identities and embrace different identities (Pattern 5).

Headline: Lovestory! From: Ami (Sweden)

I absolutely agree . . . There must be some people somewhere that are better to express themselves than we are here in Sweden..

Headline: Lovestory! From: Kristin (Sweden)

i don\t think that has to do so much with culture. I think intimacy in friendship differs from person to person. Everyone is differerent and not everyone likes to be intimate with someone else, while others love it. Ami and Steve embrace the idea of cultural values in expressing friendship and intimacy. Kristin believes in a less culturally deterministic explanation about intimacy and asserts a more individualistic value, which reflects a cultural belief that the students did not further interrogate in this discussion thread. In exploring how the author manipulated the conventions of typical story beginnings and endings and the metaphors that construct a love story, the students mediated an analysis of literary style in terms of their cultural expectations and values and engaged in a critical explication of their own cultural beliefs and identities. The Short Story Forum provided a space for English preservice teachers to enact a critical intercultural perspective, which can be attributed to the explicit prompt given in the forum for students to analyze posts in terms of the cultural values and beliefs communicated by their responses to the literature.

Implications for English Classrooms and English Teacher

Education

Global discussion forums in the English classroom can help students to inter-pret texts from multiple perspectives, reflect on the cultural beliefs and values that might frame varying interpretations, problematize representations and

interpretations, and consider how to transform identities and relationships in their intercultural interactions. In the Short Story Forum, the students’ discussion supported an increased awareness of the cultural practices that shaped the identities of the characters in the story and of themselves as readers from a par-ticular culture. Through their discussion, the students became aware of interpretations when mediated by different cultural beliefs, values, and practices. The awareness they developed is often associated with the enactment of critical literacy, as expressed by Frye (1997): “All critical literacies involve challenging traditional notions of literacy and developing an awareness of the ideological nature of texts and their abil-ity to position readers. They also focus on developing an understanding of how language relates to its social context and attempt to open up alternative reading and writing positions for students.”

Preservice teachers should have an opportunity to participate in on-line discussions to explore firsthand knowledge of the potential they hold for glocalizing the English classroom. “The prospects for online media to create truly global communities increases every day. Yet the ability to make contact with others does not necessarily mean international online interac-tions (IOI’s) will be effective” (St. Amant, 2007, p. xvi). Within the theoretical framework of this study, an effective online interaction is one in which the participants explicitly identify and discuss the cultural values that differen-tially frame meanings for a text. A few pedagogical principles derived from this study and previous research might guide the design and use of online discussion forums that support an intercultural critical literacy practice:

> First, students must welcome the opportunity to discuss their

inter-pretations about commonly experienced texts, media, or life events with global partners in online discussion forums, especially when the time frame for interaction is focused and short.

> Second, when explicitly prompted, students are quite capable of

digging below their surface responses to texts to hypothesize and discuss the cultural values and beliefs that might support and com-plicate different interpretations.

> Third, intercultural critical literacy can develop, not solely from

identifying the underlying values and beliefs of the “other” cul-tures, but through reflection on one’s own cultural values and

In the Short Story Forum, the

students’ discussion supported

an increased awareness of the

cultural practices that shaped the

identities of the characters in the

story and of themselves as

beliefs prompted by the interpretations and questions of others, and by explicit inquiries into one’s cultural experiences and values that shape interpretations. Explaining a response to a text to members of another culture can break down conventional meanings taken for granted by members of the same culture.

> Fourth, the five patterns of mediation can provide a framework to

guide students toward the explicit identification, critique, and nego-tiation of cultural beliefs and values that frame textual interpreta-tions.

Web-based forums, like the Short Story Forum, can provide a space for preservice English teachers to develop an intercultural critical literacy practice that reduces authoritative practices of meaning making, heightens self-awareness of implicit cultural frameworks for meaning, and transcends boundaries of perceived difference. Even if global discussion partners are not available, sufficient cultural differences may reside in any classroom. These differences tend to remain silent in face-to-face discussions, but they might surface more easily in online discussions where students have time to reflect and compose their responses and inquiries about the cultural values and beliefs that shape their ideas. Thus, an online discussion forum may generate similar critical literacy practices, even if it only includes students from the same classroom.

Several online Web forums exist, including the service developed in this project (http://piccle.ed.psu.edu), providing English teachers with the capabilities to host discussions and seek global discussion partners. While a limitation with the Short Story Forum lay in its reliance on English lan-guage for interaction, English lanlan-guage learners also may benefit from an opportunity to learn English within the authentic context of discussions. Unfortunately, U.S. students might not have the opportunity to develop ad-ditional language skills to more fully understand how language and culture are mutually shaping. Still, if participating teachers and students continue to focus discussion in the forums on the negotiation of ideological meanings for globally shared multimedia and print texts, regardless of the languages used for communication, the opportunities for students to compare mean-ings and experiences may prompt self-reflection and generate intercultural critical literacy practices that make visible for critique and transformation our glocal identities, relationships, and values. This critical literacy goal should be at the core of English language arts classrooms and the prepara-tion of English teachers.

Note

The contents of this article were developed under an EU-U.S. Cooperation grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, (FIPSE), U.S. De-partment of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

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Jamie Myers is an associate professor of education and director of an English education professional development school at The Penn State University. Fredrik Eberfors is a lecturer in Swedish and head of the Language Education Department in the School of Education and Communication of Jönköping University, Sweden.

NCTE Literacy Education Advocacy Day 2010: April 22

Join NCTE members from across the nation for NCTE’s Literacy Education Advocacy Day on Thursday, April 22, 2010. NCTE members will meet for a morning of briefings, an afternoon of visiting legislative offices, and a debriefing get-together at the end of the day. See http://www.ncte.org/action/advocacyday for details.