Study Title: A principal's perspective on multiliteracies in an Australian show community:
Implications for learning as rural engagement
Study Author: Fullerton, C., Danaher, G., Moriarty, B. & Danaher, P.
Publication Details: Education in Rural Australia, vol. 14, no. 2, 2005, pp. 69-80.
Summary:
What did the research aim to do?
By means of extensive interview with a key informant, this study aimed to explore key features of
interactions and relationships between the Queensland School for Travelling Show Children and
the show traveller community in relation to how these mediate the formal educational goals of the
school, the show community's educational interests and its distinctive cultural ways. As part of this
larger purpose, the study aimed to explore the utility of the concept of 'multiliteracies' for
understanding the forms of 'sense making' that characterise the interactions between the school
and the community.
How was the study designed?
The study forms part of a larger qualitative project using mainly semi-structured interviews and
some observations in the school and local show sites. The four researchers conducted interviews
with 35 people (educators, parents and children) during a 7-day period in August 2003. All
interviews were audiotaped and the researchers listened to and discussed all interviews as a team.
Interview data addressed five main aspects: the school's operations; what participants believed
show children need in their education; the role of the school in providing that education and other
things that could be done so that the show children could receive the most effective education for
the times they live in; and issues that participants thought it was important for 'non-show people’ to
know about show people and their education. Interviews were transcribed and the transcriptions
were scrutinised to identify themes, convergences and divergences in relation to participants'
educational aspirations and experiences, as well as to identify key issues. The current report deals
with data collected from the Principal of the school serving the show community. The Principal is
also first author of the paper.
What were the limitations?
This paper presented only the perspectives and representations of the school Principal. To this
extent, as the authors recognise, 'the experiences and perceptions of other stakeholders (…
children, their parents and staff members of the school) are being filtered through the Principal's
words and perceptual framework'. To this extent, data validation will require familiarity with
subsequent publications in which other participants are the key informants.
What were the findings?
The findings reflect the study's conceptual framing around the idea of multiliteracies understood in
terms of the 'multiple forms of literacy… that enable one to communicate effectively across a
number of different contexts with multiple audiences'. In other words, people take on 'diverse and
multilayered identities to engage with a range of interactions'. They employ 'designs of meaning' to
make sense in different settings involving different peoples and practices.
Two key findings emerge. One is that the Principal and the school made strong efforts to recognise
and value the informal and traditional knowledge of the show people, including their diverse ways
of 'negotiating' the world. These include many 'non-formal literacies'. The second finding is that
many parents from the show community wanted to assist the school's efforts to develop formal
literacy skills in their children as a basis for extending their range of possible future engagements
with the world.
Specific findings pertain to specific non-formal literacies engaged by show people (e.g., a rich oral
culture transmitted in song and story across generations about their traditional heroes), the ways in
which the community’s ways of being disrupt conventional binaries like 'mobile-settled' and 'formal
education-informal learning', and the strategies employed by the school to promote formal literacy
among parents whilst addressing the formal literacy of the children. There was also evidence that
the children's formal education was not always an easy meeting ground between the formal
literacy of the school system and the informal 'multiliteracies' of the show community. This
particularly involves negotiating and mediating the different rhythms and routines of life at school
and life on the showgrounds.
What conclusions were drawn from the research?
The key conclusion presented in the paper is that the Australian show community experiences
distinctive challenges in linking formal and informal forms of 'sense-making' and, to that extent, in
'using learning to (re)engage its members'.
It is further suggested that this very fact creates the possibility of understanding and actioning
learning as 'rural engagement', because some of the dilemmas faced by the show community are
similar to those facing rural communities. These include distance from other people;
misunderstandings of and by other people; lack of reliable access to resources that city people
take for granted; strong family ties existing over generations; skills and ways of making sense that
have been well honed over generations yet may have little formal currency.
At the same time, the approach to formal education taken by the Queensland School for Travelling
Show Children contains some potential strategies for addressing such dilemmas: for example,
trying to build pedagogical bridges between the formal literacy of the school system and the
informal multiliteracies of the community.
What are the implications of the study?
The main implication of the study is that taking up the challenge of multiliteracies in the ways
presented in the interview data from the key informant is a potentially important way of
implementing three strategies that have been identified as necessary for enhancing rural
Australians' access to educational services: namely, 'innovative delivery style, diversification of the
client base, and differentiation of educational products' (Eversole 2001).
Generalisability and significance for Queensland
There is no research basis for generalising the findings of the study to larger populations apart
from the arguments that the show community and rural communities share features in common
that may be addressed by particular kinds of educational relationships and strategies. To the
extent that these arguments are well made—and empirical evidence for this would require a great
deal more research—the study's significance for Queensland is that the kind of reading of
multiliteracies that it employs may usefully inform strategic approaches to rural education more
generally.
Where can interested readers find out more?
Danaher, P., Hallinan, P. & Moriarty, B. 1999, ‘Educating Australian circus children: Strategies to
reinvigorate rural education’, Education in Rural Australia, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-8.
Eversole, R. 2001, ‘Keeping youth in communities: Education and out-migration in the south-west’,
Rural Society, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 85-98.
Keywords: multiliteracies, literacy, rural education, school-community relations