Reading, reading the world, and self

Through multidisciplinary projects, the goal of the research unit is to study literacies and their relationship to social and cultural issues that impact minorities in bilingual and multicultural settings. Several societal perspectives provide ways in which each person constructs a way of becoming in the world.

One of these perspectives, literacies, provides an alternative that allows one to see and read the world from a minority context within national/Canadian and international societies. Every member of a minority community must benefit from good quality education. In order to reach this objective, it is important to put in place quality learning conditions for both adults and children. These conditions can be realized with the help of multiple literacies, be they personal, community, school-based or critical literacies.

Literacies are personal, school-based, community and critical. These literacies facilitate:

• " Reading competences, ability to comprehend and express oneself in all subject areas as well as in technology and multimedia (school-based literacy);
• " Valorization of literacies that extend beyond the school context (community literacy);
• " Analytical methods that lead to a transformation of the individual stemming from responses to cultural and social inquiries (personal literacy and critical literacy).

Members of the Research Unit

You could view the biography of the members by clicking on their name: Diana Masny, Francis Bangou, Douglas Fleming, Awad Ibrahim, and Claire Maltais.