Routledge Multimodal Pedagogies in Diverse Classrooms: Representation, Rights and Resources

Multimodal Pedagogies in Diverse Classrooms examines how the classroom can become a democratic space founded on the integration of different histories, modes of representation, feelings, languages and discourses, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the connection between multimodality, pedagogy, democracy and social justice in diverse classrooms. Pippa Stein combines theory with material taken from post-apartheid classrooms in South Africa where students from different language and cultural backgrounds negotiate the ongoing tensions between tradition and modernity, Western and African intellectual thought, as well as the apartheid-past of their parents, and their own aspirations for the future. This insightful book argues that classrooms can become ‘transformative’ sites in which students can develop curricula and pedagogies which speak to the diversity of global societies, and looks at: How multimodality can be used to promote social justice and democracy in diverse classrooms; The forms of representation through which students make meaning in classrooms; How those forms contribute to the building of democratic cultures; The cultural resources available to students, and how they are used for learning; Difference as a productive energy for learning. Dealing with issues such as democracy, politics of difference, diversity, multicultural and multilingual classrooms, this book is as pertinent to readers across the globe as it is to those in South Africa, and will be invaluable and fascinating reading for anyone working or interested in this field. Review ‘Pippa Stein's book deals with what is maybe the central issue among the vast, daunting problems of education for South Africa's post-apartheid society - the issue of 'literacy'. She shows the starkly desperate problems of so many children, their vibrant response, their energy, imagination, powerful and, often, filled with joy. Out of that she develops a theory around learning and making meaning for conditions of profound diversity, a theory that could only have been thought in South Africa; yet provides a path through, there as much as here or anywhere.’ - Gunther Kress, Professor of Education, Head of School, School of Culture, Language and Communication, Centre for Multimodal Research, Institute of Education, London "…Stein’s Multimodal Pedagogies is a significant, much-needed response to the many perplexing questions presented by an expanded multi-semiotic, multimodal view of literacy and learning." – Language Arts, Vol. 86, No. 2, November 2008 About the Author Pippa Stein is Assistant Professor in language and literacy education at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and head of the division of Applied English Language Studies.