Multi-Literacies Pedagogy Design: The Case Of Focused Ethnographic Research And Catalytic Validity In Literacy Development

Lack of teaching learning materials and parental involvement are often cited as key challenges to the provision of sustainable quality education in resource-poor contexts. These have been among a host of factors against sustainable schooling in Sub-Saharan and East Africa in particular. This paper reports a research and development initiative aimed at leveraging these and other attendant challenges. The research initiative utilized a sequential mixed method design to establish the baseline factors and status of literacy development in a rural district. The intervention responded to headlines often screaming that inadequate school and teaching resources challenge education in Sub-Saharan Africa. This was exploited as an opportunity for stakeholder participation in Multi-literacies Pedagogy Design for sustainable materials development. The study used a questionnaire survey involving all 101 primary schools in a rural district followed by rapid ethnography involving 20 of the schools and detailed vertical case studies involving another five purposively selected schools. Results revealed how socio-cultural specific factors including why appropriate learning materials were lacking and daunting challenges against parental involvement militated against children’s effective learning. Consequently twenty five teachers and 10 parents were invited to participate in a capacity building workshop leading to the development of socio-culturally relevant learning materials. Together ten story books were developed in Kiswahili and English with three of the titles further developed in braille. About 45,000 copies have now been distributed to more than 150 schools as well as libraries and other intervention programmes in the region. This study has trail blazed a new theoretical framework applicable to the Sub-Saharan African context potentially responding to the context-specific challenges such as large classes, parental involvement and education budgetary constraints by national governments. This will again repudiate dominant relations of power between the home and school domains by recognizing the crucial role of communities’ funds of knowledge in the curriculum.