Editor: Viv Edwards (University of Reading, UK)
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Volume: 14 Number: 2 Page: 96–122
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Revisiting the Continua of Biliteracy: International and Critical Perspectives
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Nancy H. Hornberger and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester
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The continua model of biliteracy offers a framework in which to situate research, teaching, and language planning in linguistically diverse settings. Arguing from this model, and citing examples of Cambodian
and Puerto Rican students in Philadelphia's public schools as illustrative of the challenge facing American educators, Hornberger has suggested that the more their learning contexts allow learners to draw
on all points of the continua, the greater are the chances for their full biliterate development. The present paper revisits the continua model from the perspective of several international cases of educational
policy and practice in linguistically diverse settings - Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, and from a critical perspective which seeks to make explicit the power relationships which define bi(multi)literacies
in these contexts. Building from these perspectives and from continuing research in Philadelphia's Cambodian and Puerto Rican communities, we propose an expanded continua model which takes into account
not only biliterate contexts, media, and development, but also, crucially, the content of biliteracy. We conclude with comments on how the insights of the continua model of biliteracy can contribute to
our understanding not only of linguistically diverse classrooms, but also of all classrooms.
© Multilingual Matters 2000
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