DOCUMENT RESUME ED 331 316 FL BOO 330 AUTHOR Farr, Marcia TITLE Biliteracy in the Home: Practices among Mexicana Families in Chicago. PUB DATE Jan 91 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the Btliteracy Colloquium of the Center for Applied Linguistics, National Clearinghouse on Literacy Education (Washington, DC, January 12-13, 1991). PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143) -- Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Adult Basic Education; Educational Attitudes; English (Second Language); *Family Environment; Higher Education; Immigrants; *Language Role; *Literacy; Literacy Education; *Mexican Americans; *Social Networks; Spanish IDENTIFIERS *Biliteracy; *Illinois (Chicago) ABSTRACT One segment of a larger study examined literacy activities occurring within the homes of immigrant families in Chicago's Mexican-American community. During the first year and a half of fieldwork, literacy practices seemed minimal and Infrequent. However, further analysis indicated that such practices were occurring, and were woven into the fabric of family life. Within the community and the home, a variety of print in English and Spanish was available. Literacy was found not to be taken for granted, but was actively taught by parents. Literate adults within the social network were held in high regard. Proficiency in literacy appeared to be linked to childhood opportunity for schooling, with a clear trend toward increased literacy with each new generation. Even older adults indicated great interest in some literary texts. It was concluded that these families, especially as a social network, have considerable expertise with literacy, routinely handling literacy demands in this as well as other domains, and consistently indicating interest in improving their literacy skills. However, it is noted that development of literacy extension efforts must take into consideration the community's perception of the place of literacy in its life and respect its cultural values. A 58-item bibliography is included. (MSE) (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ****** ***** *** *********** * ***** **************************************** BILITERACY IN THE HOME: PRACTICES AMONG MEXICANQ FAMILIES IN CHICAGO paper prepared for Biliteracy Colloquium Center for Applied Linguistics National Clearinghouse on Literem Education Washington, D.C. January 12-13, 1991 U 3 DEPANTNENT Of EDUCATION Offic "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS of Educafronat Research arid frhpfo.ers,rhf EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY INFORMATIoN CENTER tERtc Thts dOcurnent PITS y' Oven reproduced 1-C/N/ 11, aS receiver, rrOro the Para,Do or Orilamiafrul orliprkatav r r Maio, Lnanga 'rave Peen Made 1,1 ampt,,,e ,ePrOdUCtIon guabfy Pchnts of rare or opirlJong ir woo ,n 1A.s dcx u men, do nnI nreaSSa,rfy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ,epreserd offq,a, OfiRrpos,frollwoorrcy INFORMATION CENTER IERIC)" Marcia Farr Dept. of English, m/c 162 University of Illinois at Chicago Box 4348, Chicago, IL 60680 4 BEST COPY AVAILABLE INTRODUCTION: DEFINING LITERACY Many scholars have struggled in recent years to define more precisely what literacy is. Clearly literacy cannot be reduced to one definition (Graff, "a plurality of literacies" 1986,1987); (Szwed, 1981) more accurately reflects literacy practices that vary from context to context. Definitions of literacy, then, range rather widely, but usually cluster around two concepts: one is "functional" (or basic) literacy and the other is "essayist" (often meaning text-level) literacy (Olson, 1977; Scollon and Scollon, 1981). Heath (1987) has suggested the terms literacy skills and refer to literate lichaviors to the cognitive and linguistic processes behind these two general conceptions of literacy. Distinguishing literacy skills (the encoding and decoding of a writing basic system, and writing) or reading from literate behaviors (using problem-solving and knowledge-creating abilities) may have clarified some problems in literacy-defining, particularly in providing terms for common conceptions of literacy, but it has led to other problems. Ethnographic research on literacy among particular groups of people (Scribner and Cole, 1981; Tannen, 1982, 1984; Heath, 1983; Street, 1984; Shuman, 1986) has countered effectively the earlier assertion some of scholars that literacy orality and were essentially a dichotomy (Olson, 1977; Ong, 1982), and that entire groups of people, even in complex literate societies, had "oral" cultures and thus were unable to think abstractly (e.g., Farrell, 1983). Ethnographic research on literacy has shown clearly that 1 (.# oral and written language (in societies which use a writing system) often used within the ways subtle overlap and are same in communication event. some have taken this Recently, however, finding even further and have argued that literacy can be an entirely oral activity; that is, rather than using oral language to discuss or otherwise "take off" on a piece of print (e.g., Heath, 1983), some have argued that literacy can mean using oral language in ways that are considered "literate" without involving any print at all (Gee, 1989; Vasquez, 1989). One problem with this view is that it doesn't allow for distinctions between languages/cultures with no writing system (i.e., non-literate societies) and those with writing. And it has been argued with both historical and ethnographic evidence that, over time, writing does make a difference in cultures (Goody, 1986, 1987), although not the "great leap" that was originally claimed by some scholars (Goody and Watt, 1963; Goody, 1977; Olson, 1977; Ong, Finnegan 1982). careful synthesis (1989), in a of anthropological work which bears on the orality - literacy debate, concludes that the invention of wrting acts as an "enabling" factor, which, along with other factors social (e.g., the development of paper from trees), can stimulate significant changes in a culture. Ultimately, one arena in which change may occur is in the use of oral language, as "feedback" from literacy to oral language (Goody, 1987); thus the oral language of those who are immersed in written texts begins to resemble the written language of their 2 Because of this "feedback," some oral language use can culture. be quite "literate" in the sense that it reflects characteristics of literate traditions of a particular culture. In my view, however, this phenomenon doesn't justify claiming that using solely oral language (e.g., in the construction of personal narratives) is a literacy activity, even though it may involve, for example, soma analytic thinking. Finnegan's (1989) synthesis provides abundant evidence that non-literate peoples engage in the kinds of thinking that in our culture are termed "literate," but they do not do so with writing. To say, then, that what these peoples, or other groups, do solely with oral language is "literacy" eliminates this distinction between literate and non-literate societies. We then would have to claim that the invention of writing in various cultures around the world was relatively insignificant in human Clearly, although no "great leap," writing is not an history. insignificant development, primarily because of its ability to extend communication over space and time. Undoubtedly, something very important is at stake when so much energy is spent on--and such controversy surrounds--the defining What is at stake here are the of a phenomenon such as literacy. Depending on the political implications of various definitions. definition, entire groups of people can be labeled "illiterate." defined as using "higher order" example, literacy For is if and other "abstract" thinking analytic logic critical (i.e., then those who use cognitive processes) in written language, to function written language only -functional" ways (i.e., in 3 r- "illiterate." pragmatically in daily life) can be said to be relatively few adults In fact, recent research has shown that (NAEP, 1986)0 in the United States can be said to be ngn-literate not skills but, supposedly, those who use literacy although literate behaviors (at least not with writing), have been termed In this way, the economic problems semi-literate" (Miller, 1988). of the "underclass," or of the working classes more generally, can members of these groups are not be seen as their own problem: literate enough to perform jobs which would yield them more money. Wilson (1987), however, has shown that the economic problems of what he termed the "underclass" (and has revised to "the ghetto poor") are the result of structural changes in the economy, not Moreover, some research has shown group or individual factors. that literacy often is used to screen potential employees, even Thus it when it is not actually needed on the job (Levine, 1986). if everyone were fully does not seem to be clear that, even literate, everyone could be fully employed. Workforce 2000, a report of the U.S. Department of Labor, claims that there soon will be numerous jobs, but that many people not have the skills (including literacy--or perhaps the will cognitive style associated with literate behaviors) to perform This claim is based on an expectation that jobs in an these jobs. increasingly kinds new of automated workplace require will abilities increasing and women skills. of numbers and As is apparently these minorities are entering the workforce, it groups in particular who may need further training. Researchers 4 may be skeptical, as I am, about these predictions, but we have limited evidence about the actual uses of literacy in a variety of work situations with which to argue with those who make the claims. What do we actually know of the role of literacy in the workplace? This question is central to the controversy over how literacy is defined, since defining literacy will affect what kind of literacy is taught in school, and one (though not the only) justification for a particular kind of literacy instruction is that it prepares students for the workplace. Reviews of work in this area have indicated that: literacy demands can vary greatly from one place of work o to another, many blue as well as white collar jobs do involve almost o daily literacy activity, o much of this literacy activity (especially for blue collar work) involves the filling out of forms, and more work in this area is needed in a variety of settings o to determine the range of variation in the level of literacy from one place of work to another and to provide an in-depth view of writing processes, functions, and social contexts (Jacob, 1982; Mikulecky, 1982). In my own ethnographic research with Mexican-origin families in Chicago, I have found the demand for literacy at work to vary widely. In some of the jobs family members hold, no literacy is required at all in a poultry processing plant where a (e.g., workforce of virtually all Mexican women debone, weigh, and pack 5 chicken breasts and other parts), whereas in others, women (with as few as two years of formal schooling in Mexico, in Spanish) are struggling to write reports in English as part of a quality control process in a factory. As researchers have noted, people in such jobs often perform beyond their apparent level of literacy skills (Diehl and Mikulecky, 1988; Cintron, 1989; Crandall, 1981), using contextual information to complete tasks which they probably would be unable to complete under experimental, out-of-context conditions. It is not totally clear, then, what role(s) literacy plays, or doesn't play, in all settings across the workplace 'domain. While initial work in this area has shown literacy activity to be involved in many jobs, we need more in-depth, on-site ethnographic studies to describe workplace literacy activity more fully and, importantly, to compare employer and employee perceptions of this activity (Gundlach, Farr, and Cook-Gumperz, 1989). Finally, we have insufficient generalizable evidence at this point to determine conclusively how important literacy is in the employability of people, although we do know that this seems to vary greatly from context to context, even within the same job level in the same industry (Jacob, 1982). Our knowledge gaps, in addition to the variation in literacy activity researchers already have found, thus lend limited clarity at the present time to the controversy over how literacy should be defined--or whose literacy should provide the model for this definition. Graff (1981) has pointed out, however, that only 6 (functional) literacy skills can be considered universal, since what people do with these skills varies from culture to culture and throughout history. Also, this level of literacy may be the most widely and frequently used by many segments of the population in this country, whether or not "essayist" literacy is used as well by some of them. Virtually everyone has to deal with forms (i.e., the literacy of large public institutions) in one aspect or anote,o- of their lives, whether at work or at home. The teaching of "essayist" literacy, in both oral and written activities at school, then becomes a separate question, justified not just on economic, but on civic, including political, grounds. My working definition of literacy, then, like Graff's, is that of Heath's litgracv skillg: communication which involves encoding (writing) and/or decoding (reading) with a writing system. My choice of functional literacy as the working definition of "literacy" itself is supported by the fact that this definition generally reflects the (emic) view of literacy held by the Mexican families with whom I have been working. That the members of these families is, generally view literacy as the decoding and encoding of language with a writing system, in this case either the Spanish or the English alphabet.' 'Many of the parents have remarked to me on various occasions that literacy is "easier" in Spanish than in English, since the Spanish alphabet matches spoken sounds more closely than English letters do, i.e., you really can "sound out" printed words fairly accurately. In addition, I have observed both adults and children sounding out printed words in Spanish, syllable by syllable. In one incident, a young boy won an argument with his cousin over the writing of someone's name (and other words) because the cousin had left out crucial sounds, and thus letters. 7 THE MEXICAN-ORIGIN LANGUAGE AND LITERACY PROJECT2 The Mexican-origin Language and Literacy Project at the University of Illinois at Chicago has as its overall goal the description of oral and written language patterns in the Mexican- origin community of Chicago. Our preliminary work in the two (contiguous) most concentrated Mexican-origin neighborhoods in Chicago indicated at three major least sub-groups this in Mexicanos community; (immigrants raised Mexican Mexico), in Americans raised in Chicago (who generally prefer the terms Mexican or Mexican American to Chicano), and Mexican Americans raised in Texas (who often refer to themselves as telanos). The first phase of this project has investigated language and literacy among Mexicanu, Mexican or immigrants, community this in (Elias- Olivares, 1990; Farr, 1989, forthcoming; Guerra, forthcoming). We hope that future studies will provide a closer lock at the two groups of Mexican Americans described above. For several years I have participated in the lives of families within one social network of Mexicanos in the heart of the Mexican- origin community in Chicago. A social network, a conceptual tool are grateful the 2we to National Science Foundation, Linguistics Program, for supporting the first year and a half of this study, providing a grant to myself and Lucia Elias- by Olivares. Juan Guerra, a Ph.D. student of mine, worked as a co- ethnographer with us during that time, I am additionally grateful to the Spencer Foundation for funding another two years of the study, by providing me a grant through August, 1992. 8