Rethinking the Education of Multilingual Learners

A Critical Analysis of Theoretical Concepts

Jim Cummins

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781800413603
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Over the past 40 years, Jim Cummins has proposed a number of highly influential theoretical concepts, including the threshold and interdependence hypotheses and the distinction between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency. In this book, he provides a personal account of how these ideas developed and he examines the credibility of critiques they have generated, using the criteria of empirical adequacy, logical coherence, and consequential validity. These criteria of theoretical legitimacy are also applied to the evaluation of two different versions of translanguaging theory – Unitary Translanguaging Theory and Crosslinguistic Translanguaging Theory – in a way that significantly clarifies this controversial concept.

Part 1

Evolution of a Theoretical Framework: A Personal Account

Introduction

My goal in this section of the book is to provide some background and insight into the origins of the theoretical constructs I have proposed over the past 45 years. In various publications (e.g. Cummins, 1981a, 2000, 2001), I described constructs such as the threshold hypothesis, the linguistic interdependence hypothesis, and the distinction between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP).1 As these ideas evolved (e.g. Cummins, 1986, 1989, 1996), the psycholinguistic constructs were integrated into a broader sociological framework that explored ways in which identities are negotiated in teacher-student interactions and how this process of identity negotiation is rooted in patterns of historical and current societal power relations.

Thus, the framework represents an integration of different disciplinary perspectives including applied linguistics, psychology, sociology and pedagogy. This reflects the fact that all the interactions that take place between educators and students in schools can be viewed and analysed within the context of multiple frames of reference. None of these disciplinary perspectives is inherently superior to any of the others, but a more complete understanding of the dynamics and consequences of teacher-student interactions is likely to be obtained through a synthesis of different perspectives.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the central theoretical claims of the framework. It outlines the relationships between psycholinguistic dimensions that focus on linguistic and cognitive characteristics of bilingual individuals and sociopolitical dimensions that highlight how power relations in the wider society, ranging from coercive to collaborative, influence the learning opportunities experienced by minoritised students within the context of schooling. In this chapter, I also attempt to position myself within the narrative of how these ideas evolved by connecting some of the broader themes to my own schooling experiences.

Chapter 2 discusses my initial attempt during the 1970s to resolve apparent contradictions in the way research on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism was being interpreted. Research studies conducted during the 1960s and early 1970s suggested that, under certain conditions, bilingualism might benefit aspects of students’ cognitive and metalinguistic functioning. These findings were diametrically opposed to earlier claims, articulated since the 1920s, of negative cognitive consequences associated with bilingualism. Drawing on Vygotskian notions of linguistic mediation, I suggested that the consequences of bilingualism might depend on the extent to which students attained a threshold level of proficiency in their two languages as they progressed through schooling. Specifically, the levels of proficiency students acquired in their two languages might mediate their ability to understand instruction and attain an additive form of bilingualism that entailed cognitive, linguistic, and academic advantages (Cummins, 1976).

The developmental interdependence hypothesis, discussed in Chapter 3, was initially proposed in several papers in 1978 and 1979, with the goal of resolving an apparent contradiction in the outcomes of research on bilingual and second language immersion programmes. This contradiction was expressed as follows (Cummins, 1979a: 222): ‘Why does a home-school language switch result in high levels of functional bilingualism and academic achievement in middle-class majority language children … yet lead to inadequate command of both first (L1) and second (L2) languages and poor academic achievement in many minority language children?’ Drawing on research conducted in Sweden (Skutnabb-Kangas & Toukomaa, 1976), as well as a variety of other findings suggesting consistently significant relationships between L1 and L2 literacy-related abilities among students in bilingual and second language immersion programmes, the interdependence hypothesis suggested that ‘the level of L2 competence which a bilingual child attains is partially a function of the type of competence that child has developed in L1 at the time when intensive exposure to L2 begins’ (1979a: 233).

The initial threshold and interdependence hypotheses focused specifically on the language competencies involved in schooling but did not elaborate in any formal way the theoretical construct of language proficiency. In the late 1970s and early 1980s (Cummins, 1979b, 1980a), I drew on empirical data regarding developmental trajectories of different components of language proficiency (both L1 and L2) and theoretical analyses of the construct of language proficiency to propose a distinction between cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) and basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS). The empirical and theoretical rationale underlying this conceptual distinction is outlined in Chapter 4.

In Chapter 5, the relationship between minoritised students’ academic achievement and societal power relations is discussed, drawing on both sociopolitical and psycholinguistic empirical and theoretical perspectives. Central to this analysis is the claim that patterns of teacher-student identity negotiation reflect the extent to which educators, individually and collectively, challenge the operation of coercive relations of power as they are manifested in educational structures, policies, practices and ideologies. The construct of identity texts is outlined as a core component of literacy instruction that affirms minoritised students’ identities in opposition to coercive power relations in the wider society.

Finally, Chapter 6 addresses the question of which groups of students experience disproportionate academic difficulties and examines what evidence-based instructional responses can credibly be invoked to reverse these academic difficulties. These instructional responses include engaging students’ multilingual repertoires, maximising literacy engagement, and implementing culturally empowering pedagogy that creates interactional spaces that affirm and expand student identities.

In discussing how these theoretical concepts were generated and how they evolved over time, I try to identify the specific issues or problems to which they were addressed, the empirical data from which they emerged and additional data that they helped explain, the logical connections that helped provide coherence to the ideas, and finally the implications of the research and theory for educational language policies and classroom instruction.

Note

(1)In discussing CALP, I initially used the term cognitive/academic language proficiency (Cummins, 1979b, 1984a) but later referred to the construct as cognitive academic language proficiency. I have reverted to the original term in this volume because it better reflects the fusion of cognitive and academic procedural and declarative knowledge (knowing how and knowing that) involved in school learning.

1Core Ideas and Background Influences

The Framework in a Nutshell

The central proposition of the theoretical framework is that underachievement among students from minoritised communities is caused by patterns of power relations operating both in schools and in the broader society. The corollary is that minoritised students will succeed educationally to the extent that the patterns of teacher-student interaction in school challenge the coercive relations of power that prevail in society at large. This perspective was expressed as follows:

Interactions between educators and culturally diverse students are never neutral with respect to societal power relations. In varying degrees, they either reinforce or challenge coercive relations of power in the wider society. Historically, subordinated group students have been disempowered educationally in the same way their communities have been disempowered in the wider society. (Cummins, 2000: 48–49)

This analysis explicitly highlighted the fact that power relations are not just abstract conceptual constructs – they are enacted by real people in specific institutional contexts. Teachers have agency and can act to challenge the operation of coercive power structures. They can also remain passive and become complicit, intentionally or unintentionally, with these power structures. Educators who enact coercive relations of power are often well-intentioned and totally unconscious that their actions and interactions are discriminatory. For example, in the past and unfortunately still today, some school psychologists who administer English-only cognitive ability tests to multilingual students may be unaware of how discriminatory these tests potentially are when administered to students who are still in the process of acquiring English and catching up to grade expectations in academic English (Cummins, 1984a). Their lack of awareness derives from the frequent absence of attention to issues related to bilingualism and language learning both in their professional training and in more general educational policies.

The fact that racism and other forms of coercive power relations may be embedded in institutional and organisational structures does not alter the fact that educators who remain unconscious of or ignore these realities are complicit with the operation of these power structures. Effective teaching in linguistically, culturally, and racially diverse contexts requires educators to reflect on, and where necessary, challenge discriminatory structures, policies and instructional practices. Even in oppressive educational contexts, educators always have individual and collective choices – degrees of freedom to implement instructional practices designed to promote students’ well-being and academic development:

As educators we are faced with a choice; we either construct interpersonal spaces between ourselves and our students such that their options for identity formation are expanded or, ...