Scientific strengths and reported effectiveness: a systematic review of multiliteracies studies

Abstract

This systematic review is built on the seminal work by the New London Group in 1996. Few endeavours have synthesized findings of empirical studies pertaining to the effects and challenges of multiliteracies practices in various schooling and geographical contexts. Through a five-point Likert scale and a deductive and inductive thematic analysis, we conducted a systematic review of 66 multiliteracies articles from the ProQuest® database. These studies were empirical, qualitative/mixed-method, and ranged from 2006 to 2015. Findings show a burgeoning number of multiliteracies studies occurring in 15 countries, with Canada being the most prominently involved. Our evaluation of the reviewed studies was generally favourable with strengths identified in researchers’ articulation of pertinent theoretical frameworks and connections to existent literature. Our findings refer to insufficient information of data collection and data analysis in a certain number of papers. We also elaborate on major affordances, challenges, and oversights of the multiliteracies practices as reported by the reviewed studies and discuss implications for future multiliteracies research, policies on literacy education, and teacher education in diverse contexts. © 2018

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Scientific strengths and reported effectiveness: a
systematic review of multiliteracies studies
Zheng Zhang, Joelle Nagle, Bethany McKishnie, Zhen Lin & Wanjing Li
To cite this article: Zheng Zhang, Joelle Nagle, Bethany McKishnie, Zhen Lin & Wanjing Li (2018):
Scientific strengths and reported effectiveness: a systematic review of multiliteracies studies,
Pedagogies: An International Journal
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1554480X.2018.1537188
Published online: 23 Oct 2018.
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ARTICLE
Scientific strengths and reported effectiveness: a systematic
review of multiliteracies studies
Zheng Zhang, Joelle Nagle, Bethany McKishnie, Zhen Lin and Wanjing Li
Faculty of Education, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT
This systematic review is built on the seminal work by the New
London Group in 1996. Few endeavours have synthesized findings
of empirical studies pertaining to the effects and challenges of
multiliteracies practices in various schooling and geographical
contexts. Through a five-point Likert scale and a deductive and
inductive thematic analysis, we conducted a systematic review of
66 multiliteracies articles from the ProQuest®database. These
studies were empirical, qualitative/mixed-method, and ranged
from 2006 to 2015. Findings show a burgeoning number of multi-
literacies studies occurring in 15 countries, with Canada being the
most prominently involved. Our evaluation of the reviewed studies
was generally favourable with strengths identified in researchers’
articulation of pertinent theoretical frameworks and connections
to existent literature. Our findings refer to insufficient information
of data collection and data analysis in a certain number of papers.
We also elaborate on major affordances, challenges, and over-
sights of the multiliteracies practices as reported by the reviewed
studies and discuss implications for future multiliteracies research,
policies on literacy education, and teacher education in diverse
contexts.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 26 April 2017
Accepted 27 March 2018
KEYWORDS
Multiliteracies; systematic
review; conceptual
synthesis; effectiveness
review
Rationale and context
The New London Group (1996) proposed a multiliteracies pedagogy that accentuated
the central role of negotiating the linguistic and cultural differences and pluralistic
modes of communication in “the pragmatics of the working, civic, and private lives of
students”(p. 60). The multiliteracies literature identifies learning opportunities that are
multilingual, multicultural, multimodal, and multi-discursive (i.e. engaging the discourses
of pertinent domains such as home, community, and school). As Allan Luke shared in his
recent interview (Garcia, Luke, & Seglem, in press), two decades after of the first
publication of the New London Group’s work, the current political and economic land-
scape is different. Yet many of the educational tensions that the New London Group
scholars tried to respond to in the 1990s still persist, such as the “renewed racism and
sexism,”the “persistent unequal distribution of capital, wealth and power,”and “the
inequities of print-based, industrial-era schooling”(n.p.). Luke suggested that the “recon-
noitering of multiliteracies”needs to begin from “an educational engagement and
CONTACT Zheng Zhang zzhan58@uwo.ca
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
https://doi.org/10.1080/1554480X.2018.1537188
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

critical analysis”of the new political, cultural, economic, civic, and media conditions (n.
p.). We argue that to generate a re-examination of multiliteracies that can be insightful
for literacy curriculum and pedagogy for the rest of the 21st century, a comprehensive
understanding of the reported affordances, challenges, and oversights of the current
multiliteracies practices that were enacted in the last two decades is needed.
Aside from Mills’(2010) review on the New Literacy Studies from 1999 to 2009, there
are few systematic reviews that synthesize multiliteracies studies in various schooling
and geographical contexts. Hence, we set out to conduct a systematic review of multi-
literacies studies. This systematic review asks: 1) What are the trends of reviewed
research on multiliteracies? 2) What are the scientific strengths of these studies? and
3) What are the reported affordances, challenges, and oversights of the multiliteracies
practices?
We defined this systematic review as both a conceptual synthesis and effectiveness
review for the purpose of “bringing together what is known from the research literature
using explicit and accountable methods”(Gough, Thomas, & Oliver, 2012, p. 1). Timulak
(2014) contended that reviewing a broader set of pertaining studies “capture[s] any
possible methodological and theoretical trends and their potential limitations”(p. 487).
As researchers, we have conducted studies underpinned by the multiliteracies scholar-
ship, which embraced fluidity and diversity of subjectivity. Ontologically, we as a
research team are passionate about exploring the “subjective and multiple”(Creswell,
2007, p. 17) educational “realities”as constructed in the reviewed studies. Timulak stated
that qualitative meta-analysis typically addresses how the quality of the findings of the
reviewed studies is shaped by the theoretical and methodological aspects of the studies.
We concur that for our systematic review findings to have practical applications for
future teachers, teacher educators, and researchers, we should scrutinize how the
methodological aspects of the reviewed studies might have influenced the trustworthi-
ness of their reported findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Our scientific strength appraisal of
the reviewed studies helped us identify what studies to include in the knowledge
synthesis of the effectiveness, challenges, and oversights of the multiliteracies practices.
Multiliteracies as a transformative pedagogy
The New London Group published the multiliteracies framework in 1996 to respond to
the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity and pluralistic modes of communication in
the globalized world. Though seen as the “central manifesto of the new literacies
movement”(Leander & Boldt, 2013, p. 22), the multiliteracies perspective is by no
means “a grand new literacy schema”(Kalantzis & Cope, 2000, p. 240). We herein sketch
the historical trajectory of scholarship that has enriched the iterations of multiliteracies.
Back in the 1980s, the New Literacy Studies scholars started to conceive of literacy as
a socially situated, ideological practice (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Barton, Hamilton,
& Ivanič,2000; Heath, 1983; Street, 1984). This social practice perspective is in contrast
with the autonomous model of literacy, which conceptualized literacy as decontextua-
lized technical skills that reside in an individual (Street, 1984). Reflecting upon the
formulation of multiliteracies, Allan Luke also confirmed that “we were moving from
the traditional focus on behavioral ‘skill’to the study of ‘text as social practice’” (Garcia
et al., in press). The social practice theories of literacy were grounded upon
2Z. ZHANG ET AL.

sociolinguistics and anthropology. Scholars in this stream were more concerned with
how a wide spectrum of literacies were patterned by different communities, socio-
cultural origins, and social institutions (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Gee, 2008; Lewis,
2001; Purcell-Gates, Jacobson, & Degener, 2004). The social practice theories also entail
broadened notions of “literacy”from linguistic symbols to texts that are “parts of lived,
talked, enacted, value-and-belief-laden practices carried out in specific places and at
specific times”(Gee, Hull, & Lankshear, 1996, p. 3, italics in original). Thus, the “multi”
in The New London Group (1996) multiliteracies framework outlined: (a) literacy prac-
tices involving different symbolic systems (i.e. multimodal literacies) (e.g. Kress, 2000); (b)
communication practices in different cultures and languages (e.g. Cope & Kalantzis,
2000; Nakata, 2000), which is referred by Gee (2008)asdifferent Discourses (See also
Newman, 2001 critique); and (c) new forms of literacy that are responses to rapid
technological changes and the new global order (e.g. Kalantzis & Cope, 2008; Luke,
2000).
The development of the multiliteracies framework reflected the extension and oscilla-
tion of the existing traditions and epistemologies of literacy. The four-component
schema of the 1996 multiliteracies pedagogy is one typical example of the multiliteracies
scholars’efforts to “reconcile those different tensions by making the case for immersion
in practice, for explicit instruction, for critique and deconstruction, and for social, civic
and semiotic action”(Garcia et al., in press, n.p.). This transformative pedagogy of
multiliteracies interacted four “competing”(Gee, 2017, p. 26), but also “complementary”
(Cope, Kalantzis, & Abrams, 2017, p. 35), pedagogical orientations, namely, situated
practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice (The New London
Group, 1996). Situated practice referred to immersion in experience and utilization of
available designs, including those from the students’lifeworlds and simulations of
relationships to be found in workplaces and public spaces. Its purpose was to provide
learners with abundant contextual clues and to enhance their abilities to actively search
for clues in unfamiliar contexts so as to make intuitive sense or common sense of
meaning. Overt instruction was concerned with systematic, analytic, and conscious
understanding. It intended to make implicit patterns of meaning explicit and nurture
students’abilities to consciously describe the process of patterns of a specific form of
literacy. Critical framing interrogated contexts and purposes and was associated with the
tradition of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2000). Critical framing encouraged
students to interrogate the social and cultural contexts of particular designs of meaning.
Transformed practice took meanings and subjectivities into new domains and was
grounded upon the strategies for transfer of learning from one context to another
and turns theories into practice. Transformed practice involved intertextuality (i.e. the
connections, influences, recreation of other texts and cross-references of history, culture,
and experience) and hybridity (Kalantzis & Cope, 2008).
The four-part multiliteracies pedagogy has been criticized for “eclecticism by those
favoring purer approaches”(Newman, 2001, p. 283). As Newman argued, “this pedagogy
is not a bag of diverse tricks”(p. 283). These four aspects of The New London Group
(1996) multiliteracies do not form a linear or rigid learning sequence, nor do they
represent a clear-cut demarcation of different paradigms. Rather, when put together,
they overlap and become contagious to each other. The New London Group contended
that this “transformed pedagogy of access”(p. 72) will enable literacy learners to
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 3

accomplish the twin goals for literacy learning: 1) to create access to the “symbolic
capital”(i.e. “symbolic meanings that have currency in access to employment, political
power, and cultural recognition”[pp. 71–72]); and 2) to cultivate the critical engagement
for the literacy learners to become transformed “Designers of social futures”(p. 65).
Serafini and Gee (2017) also confirmed that the integrated four-dimension pedagogy
reflected the New London Group scholars’goals of “activism and social change”to
“intervene politically in debates about the changing nature of capitalism, growing
worldwide inequality, and education at a time when neoliberalism was becoming
hegemonic across the developed world”(p. 3).
In the last two decades, the New London Group scholars have enriched and extended
the multiliteracies framework (e.g. Cope & Kalantzis, 2009a,2009b). In 2005, Kalantzis
and Cope reframed the four original pedagogical components into four knowledge
processes, namely, experiencing, conceptualizing, analysing, and applying (Cope &
Kalantzis, 2009a). They also formulated their four dimensions of meaning making in
new literacies: Dimension of Agency and Learners as Designers, Dimension of
Divergence & Learner Differences, Dimension of Multimodality and Synaesthesia, and
Dimension of Conceptualization and Metacognition (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009b). In 2017,
Cope, Kalantzis, and Abrams also delineated the seminal extensions that the other New
London Group scholars have been contributing to the multiliteracies manifesto.
The socio-political aims of the multiliteracies framework, its connotations of multi, its
four-part pedagogy, and its recent extensions guided our systematic review. These
elements provided entry points into our deductive and inductive thematic synthesis of
the effects, limitations, and oversights of multiliteracies practices.
Methodology
Searching strategies and screening criteria
To make the systematic review manageable, we followed a set of screening criteria: (1)
literature in the form of peer-reviewed journal papers that spanned from 1996 to 2015,
(2) literature searchable and accessible in the database ProQuest®Education Journals,
and (3) the utilization of the results from a particular “thesaurus term”(Shaw et al., 2004,
p. 2); namely, we used the controlled keyword of “multiliteracies,”which helped locate
all of the resources indexed in abstracts, resource content, or anywhere within the
document.
The use of these screening criteria resulted in 114 journal articles from 1996 to 2015,
which encompassed conceptual papers (n=40), empirical papers that used qualitative
research and mixed methods (n=71), and empirical papers that used quantitative
research methods (n=3). We further narrowed down our focus on empirical studies
that used qualitative methods, because such studies afforded the possibility to review
how multiliteracies pedagogy were conceptualized and implemented in data-rich
research. There was no empirical paper using qualitative research methods from 1996
to 2001 and from 2004 to 2005 in our search in the specified database. We then decided
to select 66 papers that were published in the timeline of 2006–2015 to form the basis
of the systematic review, because this 10-year span witnessed a steady growth of
4Z. ZHANG ET AL.

qualitative research that used multiliteracies as the framework (See Figure 1) (See
Appendix B for all reviewed studies).
The Google Scholar search of studies on “multiliteracies”within the 1995–2015 date
range yielded around 16,000 results, which is in sharp contrast with the low results via
the ProQuest®Education Journals database. We are aware that Google Scholar may serve
as a useful alternative to traditional academic databases. Yet, we concur with Haddaway,
Collins, Coughlin, and Kirk’s(2015) conclusion that Google Scholar shall not be used “as
standalone resources for finding evidence as part of comprehensive searching activities,
such as systematic reviews”(n. p.). In comparison, with a broad international scope, the
ProQuest®Education Journals were well suited for the purposes of this systematic review
as it gives users access to around 1090 top educational publications and offers complete
information on hundreds of educational topics at multiple levels of study (ProQuest,
n.d.).
Methods of systematic review
To answer the research questions regarding the effects, challenges, and oversights of
the multiliteracies practices, we used a deductive and inductive thematic analysis when
reviewing the selected literature. As Boyatzis (1998) contended, thematic analysis is “a
process that can be used with most, if not all, qualitative methods”(p. 4). We deductively
derived codes and categories to correspond to the four themes of multiliteracies
pedagogy (i.e. the four-component schema). We also developed codes inductively,
namely those emerging from the reviewed studies (See Appendix A for details of the
deductive and inductive thematic synthesis).
To answer the question regarding the scientific significance of reviewed research on
multiliteracies pedagogy, we employed a five-point Likert scale (1-extremely disagree, 2-
disagree, 3-neutral, 4-agree, and 5-completely agree). Building on the existent literature
on conducting meta-synthesis of qualitative studies (Blaxter, 2013; Timulak, 2014), we
developed the following nine categorical items:
(1) Theory: Selected theories are appropriate to the research problem and are well
articulated.
(2) Literature Review: Adequate literature review that locates well the study within the
existent literature and justifies the conduct of the study.
(3) Context: The research is clearly contextualized with a) relevant information about
the setting and participants and b) cases and variables being studied integrated in
their social context rather than being abstracted or decontextualized.
(4) Data Collection: Methods of data collection/modes of inquiry are appropriate to
the nature of the research problem.
(5) Data Analysis: Methods and steps of data analysis are clearly stated (e.g. there is
adequate information regarding how themes, concepts, and categories were
derived from data; there is adequate information regarding validity of the findings
[e.g. triangulation and providing feedback to participants]).
(6) Data Presentation: Data are presented systematically with quotations and field
notes identified in a way which enables the readers to judge the range of
evidence being used.
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 5

(7) Data and Interpretation: There is a clear distinction between the data and author’s/
authors’interpretation.
(8) Results: Results are unequivocal and credible with (a) the results addressing the
research question(s) and (b) sufficient original evidence.
(9) Conclusion: Clear conclusions are drawn about the important findings regarding
impacts of the multiliteracies pedagogy, either theoretically or practically.
Two members of the research team (Zheng and Joelle) hand-coded 25 papers using the
scale. For the purpose of training the doctoral student Joelle, and increasing inter-rater
agreement, both Zheng and Joelle were “‘blind’to the coding decisions”made by the
partners”(Issenberg, McGaghie, Petrusa, Lee Gordan, & Scalese, 2005, p. 19), and calculated
the coding agreement based on Issenberg et al.’s two notions of coding agreement: (1)
perfect agreement:“no discrepancy between the two ratings of each study item”(p. 19) and
(2) two ratings within one point on each item (which includes both one point discrepancy
and perfect agreement). Table 1 illustrates that our assessments of the reviewed 25 studies
were in high agreement with reference to the range of 25–35% among “expert ratings of
manuscripts submitted for publication in scholarly journals and for quality judgments
regarding research grant applications”(p. 19; See also Cicchetti, 1991).
This systematic review employed multiple credibility checks and ensured that the
systemic review process was epistemologically “dialogical and naturalistic”(Timulak,
2014, p. 487). For example, to appraise the scientific strengths, the two raters openly
discussed the coding judgments, resolved coding disagreements, and accomplished
rating training. Joelle then took over rating and the final assessment statistics were
calculated solely based on her evaluation of the 66 studies (See Table 2 for assessment
results). Our discussions centred around the major coding disagreements where our
ratings had 2-point discrepancies and the percentage of within 1 point agreement was
lower than 90% (i.e. data analysis, results, and conclusion). We found that our different
understandings of item content had incurred our major disagreements. For example, for
the item of “Results,”both of us agreed that the original item content of “b) sufficient
original evidence to satisfy the readers of the relationship between the evidence and the
conclusions”was confusing and concurred that for the ensuing papers, Joelle’s rating of
“Results”would focus on “Results are unequivocal and credible with a) the results
addressing the research question(s) and b) sufficient original evidence.”Also, the
Table 1. Coding agreement for scientific significance assessment.
- Rating/Items
No. of
Perfect
Agreement
Percentage of
Perfect
Agreement
No. of Two Ratings Within 1
Point (=1 point
discrepancy + perfect
agreement)
Percentage of
Within
1 point Agreement
1 Theory 18 72% 25(=7 + 18) 100%
2 Literature Review 19 76% 25(=6 + 19) 100%
3 Context 19 76% 24(=5 + 19) 96%
4 Data Collection 14 56% 23(=9 + 14) 92%
5 Data Analysis 11 44% 21(=10 + 11) 84%
6 Data Presentation 11 44% 23(=12 + 11) 92%
7 Data & Interpretation 13 52% 24(=11 + 13) 96%
8 Results 15 60% 22(=7 + 15) 88%
9 Conclusion 13 52% 21(=8 + 13) 84%
6Z. ZHANG ET AL.

processes of analysing the subthemes of affordances of each aspect of multiliteracies
required coordinated commitment of three inter-raters (Zheng, Zhen, and Wanjing). Two
research assistants (Zhen and Wanjing) went over the original data under the inductive
and deductive themes and developed subthemes separately based on their respective
understanding of the data. Then Zhen and Wanjing exchanged their subthemes and
negotiated differences to reach consensus. Zheng then reviewed the agreed-upon
subthemes for each theme and cross-checked the original data for accuracy. For the
purpose of high quality personnel training, Zheng raised questions to further Zhen’s and
Wanjing’s understanding of each concept of the multiliteracies pedagogy and the
pertaining data. Revisions of subthemes were recursive until the three of us reached
agreements.
We defined our mixed methods design as “convergent design”(Creswell & Plano
Clark, 2011) as we attempted to “develop a complete understanding by collecting both
quantitative and qualitative data, because each provides a partial view”(p. 151). Having
conducted multiliteracies studies ourselves, we felt reluctant to position ourselves in the
post-positivism paradigm of explaining and controlling (Creswell, 2014). However, we
firmly believed that for the research problem of this systematic review, the use of mixed
methods could “bring both depth and texture”(Hodgkin, 2008, p. 297) to the study and
provide a “comprehensive picture”of reviewed studies (Timulak, 2014, p. 481).
Findings and discussion
Trends of reviewed research on multiliteracies pedagogy
We first present identified trends of the reviewed studies with regard to publications by
year, then levels of study, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, gender, socioeconomic
status (SES), Special Learning Needs, and geographical contexts of research.
Figure 1 shows a growing number of research on multiliteracies from 1996 to June 2015.
There was a fluctuation of multiliteracies publications from 2000 to 2008 and then a
steady increase up to 2013. Note that our literature research was finished in June 2015,
which might have an impact on the number of displayed publications in the year of 2015.
The reviewed research represents a diverse range of participants’levels of study. Of
the 66 articles 51 included participants from 5 different education levels: secondary
school and elementary school participants were equally the most popular research
participants to be studied (n= 20), followed by kindergarten (n= 6), undergraduate
(n= 5), then graduate (n= 3) students. Twenty four of the studies were directed at
Table 2. Results of scientific significance assessment scale.
Main Assessment Categories of Reviewed Studies (n = 66) M SD
Theory 4.85 0.44
Literature Review 4.86 0.43
Context 4.58 0.68
Data Collection 3.85 1.10
Data Analysis 3.91 1.26
Data Presentation 4.24 1.01
Data & Interpretation 4.47 0.88
Results 4.35 0.95
Conclusion 4.50 0.88
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 7

participants enrolled in teacher education with 10 studies geared toward pre-service
teacher education and 17 toward in-service teacher education (three of the studies
investigated both in-service and pre-service teachers). From 6 of the 66 reviewed articles
a small population made up the remainder of the “other”education level population:
office workers (n= 2), teacher assistants (n= 2), children’s author (n= 1), retired principal
(n= 1), and parent/caregiver (n= 1).
We discovered that there was a greater amount of female participants included in the
66 multiliteracies publications compared to males. Interestingly, a total of 20 articles
included both male and female participants; however, independently from those articles,
females participated in 16 of the studies, whereas males were only involved in 2
instances. Therefore, in total, 36 publications were framed around female participants
and 22 publications included male participants. Of the publications, 28 did not specify,
or it was unclear of the gender of the participants.
The SES of the participants or where the location of the study took place was
documented as either Low, Middle, Upper Middle, or High as long as the SES was
explicitly stated in the article. The majority of the SES analysed in the studies were
recorded as unknown (n= 45), because it was not clearly stated or it was unspecified in
the article. We found that the Low SES (n= 12) of participants was the most frequently
documented, then Middle Class (n= 9), Working Class (n= 4), and Upper-Middle (n= 3).
Importantly, learners with special needs are under researched in the reviewed studies.
Only five of the studies involved participants who were identified with Attention Deficit
Hyper Disorder, dyslexia, or a low level of learning.
Figure 2 illustrates the countries where the multiliteracies studies took place over the
duration of the 11-year timeframe; 15 countries were reported from the 66 articles and 1
unknown website (See Figure 2). Of the 15, the 3 countries that were involved most
prominently in multiliteracies research were found in Canada (34.8%), the United States
of America (USA) (27.2%), and Australia (18.1%). Studies that took place in these 3
countries compose the majority of the data (80.1%) in relation to the other 12 countries.
Out of the other 12 countries, there was a very limited range from 1 to 3 published
0
11
3
00
2
8
2
4
5
99
11
10
6
No. of Publications per Year
Figure 1. Number of publications from 1996 to 2015.
8Z. ZHANG ET AL.

resources. However, among the 16 papers that reported multiliteracies research findings
in other contexts than Canada, USA, and Australia, 14 of them were published between
2011 and 2015, indicating that multiliteracies pedagogy might have recently gained
worldwide scholarly attention.
Based on the findings, we foresee the need to conduct multiliteracies inquiries in
more diverse contexts (i.e. beyond the Anglophone countries) and on broader learner
diversity (e.g. learners with special needs). Future studies could help fine-tune the
theoretical, pedagogical, and political implications of multiliteracies for learners in var-
ious contexts of the globalized world, including virtual spaces.
Strengths of reviewed research on multiliteracies pedagogy
Our evaluation of the reviewed studies was generally favourable with strengths identi-
fied in the researchers’articulation of pertinent theoretical frameworks (M= 4.85;
SD = 0.44) and connections to existent literature (M= 4.86; SD = 0.43) (See Table 2).
However, our findings refer to insufficient information of data collection (M= 3.85;
SD = 1.10) and data analysis (M= 3.91; SD = 1.26) in quite a few studies. For most of the
reviewed studies, we deemed that the methods of data collection were appropriate to
the nature of the research questions, but with a high portion of studies not clearly
stating research questions or aims of the study (n= 28; 42.4%). We identified five major
categories of specified methodologies: case study (n= 27; 41%), action research (n=8;
12.1%), ethnography (n= 6; 9.1%), mixed methods (n= 6; 9.1%), and narrative inquiry
(n= 4; 6.1%). However, 14 papers (21.2%) did not clearly specify the employed research
methodologies. Besides, there were 18 papers with limited details of data analysis
(27.3%). There was inadequate information about how authors developed themes and
categories or what mechanisms were employed by the researchers to ensure trust-
worthiness of the findings (e.g. member check and data triangulation).
0
5
10
15
20
25
Countr
y
Figure 2. Number of publications on multiliteracies in various geographical contexts.
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 9

We identified most of the reviewed studies as clearly drawing conclusions about the
important findings regarding impacts of the multiliteracies pedagogy (M= 4.5;
SD = 0.88). However, rating is comparatively lower for the two appraisal items of data
presentation (M= 4.24; SD = 1.01) and results (M= 4.35; SD = 0.95) with relatively higher
standard deviations. We found that there were 5 papers out of 66 that did not clearly
specify data sources when presenting data (one paper with a rating of 1 and four with a
rating of 2; note that there are also nine with a rating of 3). We also concurred that five
papers needed more data to support claimed results (one paper with rating of 1 and
four with rating of 2; note that there are also four with rating of 3).
These systematic review findings point to the necessity of future multiliteracies
research to improve research designs and enhance methodological strengths. More
specifically, we suggest that future multiliteracies studies elaborate on justification of
selected research traditions, data collection procedures, and data analysis steps. Our
analysis shows that reviewed studies with thick descriptions of methodological proce-
dures directly impacted the credibility of their findings, that is, the value and believ-
ability of the findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This was the reason why we excluded
studies with weaker methodological strengths in our later discussion of the affordances,
challenges, and oversights of the multiliteracies practices. We concurred that methodo-
logically stronger studies could offer a more reliable database for future researchers and
educators who seek transferability, namely, the possibility to use the findings and
pedagogy of the reviewed studies in different contexts.
Effects, challenges, and oversights of multiliteracies practices
The thematic synthesis of the 66 studies revealed that the 4 pedagogical constructs,
multimodality, and identity had received researchers’and educators’prominent atten-
tion in their multiliteracies studies and practices (See Table 3).
Below we elaborate on our findings on the affordances, challenges, and oversights of
the multiliteracies practices. For the findings to be transferrable for future researchers
and practitioners, we focused on studies with scientific strengths and excluded those
papers that did not clearly specify data sources when presenting data or needed more
data to support claimed results.
Table 3. Statistical summary of deductive and inductive themes.
Themes of Multiliteracies
No. of Studies Generally
Specifying Themes in Papers Percentage
No. of Studies Addressing
Themes in Findings Percentage
Deductive Themes
Situated Practice 51 77.3% 37 56.1%
Overt Instruction 20 30.3% 8 12.1%
Critical Framing 38 57.6% 24 36.4%
Transformed Practice 37 56.1% 22 33.3%
Inductive Themes
Multimodality & Synaesthesia 56 84.8% 33 50.0%
Literacy & Identity 17 25.8% 17 25.8%
Participatory Culture 8 12.1% 5 7.6%
Collaborative Learning/Design 14 21.2 10 15.2%
10 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

Situated practice
Studies found that celebrating students’real-life experiences could enhance their engagement
in meaning making (e.g. Ajayi, 2011;Burke,2013; Cumming-Potvin, 2007;Exley,2007;
Giampapa, 2010; Pirbhai-Illich, 2010;Prasad,2013;Ryu,2011;Skerrett,2013). Pirbhai-Illich’s
(2010) research specifically shows that students were willing to engage in literacy learning
activities that were related to their out-of-school life and their subjective interests in the gang
culture.
Nine papers (e.g. Barden, 2012; Burke, 2013; Cumming-Potvin, 2007; Exley, 2007;
Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011; Kendrick, Early, & Chemjor, 2013; Pirbhai-Illich, 2010;
Prasad, 2013; Skerrett, 2013) reported that situated practice could provide abundant
contextual resources for students to explore the unknown knowledge from new con-
texts. For example, Burke (2013) found that families’local literacy practices offered
student participants prior knowledge to construct meanings in new contexts. Ajayi
(2011) also reported that students would use their real-life experiences as “a basis for
interpreting new texts and extending knowledge”(p. 410).
The reviewed studies reported that the inclusion of situated practice allowed for a
bridge between the divide of various domains (e.g. home, community, and school) for
learners and educators (e.g. Burke, 2013; Giampapa, 2010; Henderson, 2011; Lavoie, Mark,
& Jenniss, 2014; Prasad, 2013; Skerrett, 2011). For instance, Lavoie et al.’s(2014) research
brought elders into the classroom to share their life stories with students and invited
parents to tell stories with the vocabulary included in students’weekly learning goals.
Their study exemplified the multiliteracies pedagogy, which attempted to harness the
funds of knowledge of local communities and “decolonize”(p. 218) standardized, rigid
curricula prescribed by the government. Pirbhai-Illich, Turner, and Austin’s(2009)findings
also indicated that providing meaning makers with opportunities to utilize their funds of
knowledge offered “impetus and authentic meaning”for their literacy learning (p. 158).
Overt instruction
Researchers detailed the employment of instructions that made explicit connections
between school literacy and diverse learners’cultural experiences or imaginations (e.g.
Ajayi, 2011; Cumming-Potvin, 2007; Lavoie, Sarkar, Mark, & Jenniss, 2012; Skerrett, 2013).
There were also studies that provided overt instruction to engage students in analysis
activities on specific forms of literacy, such as literacy pertaining to media and news
processes (Cooper, Lockyer, & Brown, 2013), politics and environment (Goulah, 2007),
multimodal and multimedia texts (Tan & Guo, 2014), and digital literacy (Henderson,
2011). Two papers reported findings about teachers using overt instruction of English
grammar and vocabulary in different languages (e.g. Innu, French, and Kanji) (e.g.
Goulah, 2007; Lavoie et al., 2012). But no specific impacts were reported as related to
the employment of overt instruction of vocabulary and grammar.
Serafini and Gee (2017) commented that overt instruction of metalanguage “often
seems to be overlooked, despite the importance of these conceptual tools for students’
mastery of diverse representational forms”(p. 6). Similarly, only five papers among the
reviewed studies specifically addressed the enactment of metalanguage (Exley, 2007;
Hung, Chiu, & Yeh, 2013; Mills, 2007; Mills & Exley, 2014; Tan & Guo, 2014). Mills and
Exley’s(2014) study mentioned assigning time and space to develop a metalanguage to
describe multimodal texts. Hung et al. (2013) suggested that the multimodal assessment
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 11

could be used as peer assessment and self-assessment to help students build a meta-
language to understand and describe multimodal texts. In Exley’s(2007) study, the
teacher engaged the students in a collective discussion about how texts work to build
students’metalanguage of a specific genre’s significant textual features. Tan and Guo’s
(2014) paper talked about overt instruction of a metalanguage of describing and
interpreting “the Design elements of different modes of meaning”(p. 32). But none of
the studies reported the impacts of using metalanguages upon students’understanding
of texts from their perspectives of text consumers or producers.
Critical framing
Only 36.4% of the reviewed papers (n= 24) specifically addressed various issues around
critical framing. This finding echoes Allan Luke’s observation that “many versions of
multiliteracies are taught as neutral ‘tools’, sans discussion of all of the key ethical and
political issues of surveillance and control, truth and lies, bullying and exploitation, profit
and ownership”(Garcia, Luke, & Selglem, in press, n.p.).
Seven Papers (e.g. Ajayi, 2011; Barden, 2012; Goulah, 2007; Kitson, Fletcher, & Kearney,
2007; McVee, Bailey, & Shanahan, 2008; Pirbhai-Illich et al., 2009; Tan & Guo, 2014)
reported that critical framing through analysing diverse genres and multimodal materi-
als helped learners to gain deeper understandings of learned concepts. Learners also
gained critical insights into stereotyping and gender-related power dynamics that were
encoded in the materials. For instance, through analysing texts, learners in Kitson et al.’s
(2007) study recognized that texts were “ideological constructs and position[ed] readers
in particular ways”(p. 37). English language learners (ELLs) in Burke’s(2013) study
negotiated power that was encoded in dominant forms of language and harnessed
powerful discourses in virtual spaces for their identity development. Tan and Guo (2014)
study engaged learners in critiques of power relations that were interwoven in the
production and interpretation of multimodal and multimedia texts. While Ajayi’s(2011)
research encouraged students to critically analyse gender and race roles and represen-
tations in a Disney video. Evidence from Barden’s(2012) research supported that social
media networks such as Facebook, which could develop the critical awareness of the
notion of “disability”in literacy practices with students with dyslexia.
Transformed practice
Findings of the reviewed studies indicated that meaning makers took meanings and
subjectivity into new domains. Findings also implied that the employment of multi-
literacies pedagogy augmented empowering discourses that shifted learners’at-risk/
deficit identities to multiple identities of promise (e.g. Broderick, 2014; Burke, 2013;
Exley, 2007; Kendrick et al., 2013; Lavoie et al., 2014; Skerrett, 2013). Fourteen papers
(Ajayi, 2011; Burke, 2013; Cooper et al., 2013; Cumming-Potvin & Sanford, 2015; Erstad,
Gilje, & de Lange, 2007; Exley, 2007; Giampapa, 2010; Henderson, 2011; Hibbert, 2013;
Lavoie et al., 2012; McVee et al., 2008; Phillips & Willis, 2014; Prasad, 2013; Skerrett, 2011)
reported that Transformed Practice occurred when learners employed what they have
learned previously in new contexts or situations. For example, in Lavoie et al.’s(2012)
research, student participants had to remember their knowledge about hunting Canada
geese by viewing a mural and listening to Elders’stories in their first language, and then
12 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

employed what they have learned to build their own storytelling in the second
language.
Ten papers (e.g. Ajayi, 2011; Cooper et al., 2013; Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011;Henderson,
2011;Lavoieetal.,2012; McVee et al., 2008; Pirbhai-Illich, 2010;Prasad,2013;Simon,2009;Tan
&Guo,2014) showed that multiple modes of meaning (e.g. video [Ajayi, 2011], drama
[Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011]; poems [McVee et al., 2008], mural [Lavoie et al., 2012], and
computers and the Internet [Pirbhai-Illich, 2010]) could facilitate Transformed Practice. For
instance, in Prasad’s(2013) research, student participants compared photographs, which were
taken at both school and home, and explored the similarities and differences between their
literacy learning within in- and out-of-school contexts. McVee et al. (2008) found that with the
support of various modes a student participant, Laura, redesigned and transformed a Walt
Whitman poem based on her understanding and created her own interpretation.
Pedagogical weavings
Cope and Kalantzis (2009a) noted that key “pedagogical weavings”(i.e. the process of
moving back and forth across and between these four different pedagogical orienta-
tions) (p. 184) take place through individuals making connections between in-school
learning and learners’outside-of-school experiences, as well as between learners’known
and new texts and experiences. Fifteen papers (e.g. Ajayi, 2011; Barden, 2012; Brock,
Pennington, & Ndura, 2012; Burke, 2013; Cooper et al., 2013; Cumming-Potvin, 2007;
Goulah, 2007; Kendrick et al., 2013; Lavoie et al., 2012; McLean & Rowsell, 2013; Phillips &
Willis, 2014; Pirbhai-Illich, 2010; Pirbhai-Illich et al., 2009; Skerrett, 2013; Tan & Guo, 2014)
reported pedagogical weavings between situated practice, critical framing, and overt
instruction. Specifically, four papers (e.g. Goulah, 2007; Phillips & Willis, 2014; Tan & Guo,
2014) found that overt instruction provided by teachers in the classroom would facilitate
and support students’engagement in critical framing. For example, Tan and Guo (2014)
reported that the teacher participants designed a metalanguage for both teachers and
students to critique the inherent relationships of multiple modes for their meaning
making. Similarly, Goulah’s(2007) paper showed that the teacher participants supported
foreign language learners’expressions of critical reflections by using grammar correction
and providing vocabulary for learners to engage in critical literacy that was “focused
around specific domains of knowledge”(p. 70). Two studies (e.g. Exley, 2007; McLean &
Rowsell, 2013) reported pedagogical weavings between the experiential, the analytical,
and the conceptual. In McLean and Rowsell’s(2013) study, website analyses were
intertwined with concept development for the design language. Exley’s(2007) research
findings refer to the affordance of the pedagogical weaving of students’known and new
experiences in buttressing diverse learners’pluralistic epistemologies and subjectivities.
Teachers in Exley’s study engaged students in conceptualizing practices through “nam-
ing and theorizing”(p. 108) and reported students’“active role”in moving from the
known to unknown. Two papers (e.g. Cooper et al., 2013; Cumming-Potvin, 2007)
showed that overt instruction could scaffold students’transformed practice of literacy
learning. Besides, Cooper et al. (2013) also found that the utilization of technology (e.g.
computers and filming equipment) provided overt instruction for students to under-
stand more about the media and the news process. The authors contended that it could
engage students in transformed practice as they created their own digital video news
stories.
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 13

Serafini and Gee (2017) highlighted the challenge of pedagogical weavings, because it
“requires considerable skill and expertise of teachers, as well as a deep knowledge of literacy
not cultivated by most teacher education programs”(p. 6). The findings of these papers
offer hopes for the affordances of such pedagogical weavings. However, such sporadic
findings refer to the need for future applications of multiliteracies that focus on the “power-
ful and effective teaching”that “oscillates or weaves through different pedagogical modes,
depending on what is being taught, the age/developmental capacities of the cohort, the
cultural and linguistic resources of community and students”(Garcia et al., in press).
Multimodality and synaesthesia
Fifty percent of the reviewed papers (n= 33) reported findings on multimodality and
synaesthesia (human beings’innate synaesthetic capacities to move through one mode
to another in an ensemble of modes and reconfigure knowledge [Kress, 1997]).
Reviewed research extensively reported that the incorporation of multimodality and
synaesthesis of diverse modes and media boasted potential to:
(a) increase learners’(including educators’) (cognitive) engagement and designer
agency in literacy practices (e.g. Ajayi, 2011; Cumming-Potvin, 2007; Erstad
et al., 2007; Giampapa, 2010; Hepple, Sockhill, Tan, & Alford, 2014; King, 2015;
Lawson et al., 2012; Ntelioglou, 2011; Ryu, 2011);
(b) widen learners’literacy learning participation (e.g. Ajayi, 2011);
(c) raise learners’(including parents’) critical awareness of the socially situated lit-
eracy practices (e.g. Barden, 2012; Boivin, Albakri, Yunus, Mohammed, &
Muniandy, 2014; Gouthro & Holloway, 2013; Kervin, 2009; Kitson et al., 2007;
Tier, 2008);
(d) affect participants’dynamic understanding of identities and their relations with
others (e.g. Brock et al., 2012; Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011; Goulah, 2007; Kitson
et al., 2007; Lavoie et al., 2014);
(e) influence creativity and ingenuity of meaning making through re-mixing of a
wide range of semiotic resources (e.g. Erstad et al., 2007; Towndrow, Nelson, &
Ysuf, 2013);
(f) empower learners to recognize and utilize their funds of knowledge and thus
expand options for meaning making (e.g. Heydon, Moffatt, & Iannacci, 2015;
Kitson et al., 2007; Ntelioglou, 2011;Shoffner, de Oliveira, & Angus, 2010);
(g) foster learners’(including educators’) multimodal and design epistemologies (e.g.
Hung et al., 2013; McLean & Rowsell, 2013; McVee et al., 2008; Robertson, Hughes,
& Smith, 2012; Tier, 2008);
(h) enhance learners’linguistic and social performances (Cooper et al., 2013;
Ntelioglou, 2011).
Back in 2010, Mills recommended “generating, implementing, refining, and disseminat-
ing innovative models of digital and multimodal assessments”(p. 262). Two of our
reviewed studies moved forward and actualized design-based, multimodal assessments
(e.g. Hung et al., 2013; McLean & Rowsell, 2013). These studies provided important
references for educators and researchers to further the call for innovative alternatives
of assessment for the new era.
14 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

Literacy and identity
Findings from 17 papers (25.8%) illustrated the inextricable link between literacy prac-
tices and identity (e.g. Ajayi, 2011; Brock et al., 2012; Burke, 2013; Cumming-Potvin, 2007;
Cumming-Potvin & Sanford, 2015; Giampapa, 2010; Heydon et al., 2015; Kendrick et al.,
2013; King, 2015; Lam, 2009; Lavoie et al., 2012; Marshall, Hayashi, & Yeung, 2012;
Ntelioglou, 2011;O’Byrne & Smith, 2015; Pirbhai-Illich, 2010; Ryu, 2011; Skerrett, 2013).
Studies specifically addressed “identity as difference”Moje, Luke, Davies, & Street,
2009, p. 419), that is, the way that identity is conceptualized in prevailing discourses
such as national, raced, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identities. Skerrett’s(2013)
study celebrated the participant Nina’s narratives about her identities and her affinity
groups as valuable linguistic resources. The findings show that building connections
between writing practices and identities helped Nina grow in “her understandings
about, dispositions toward, and practices of writing”(p. 349). Teacher participants in
Brock et al.’s(2012)studyspecifically explored their own racial identities and how
such identities have shaped their literacy instruction. The findings showed that
through meaning constructions about racial identities involving “a variety of multi-
modal activities and experiences that engaged their emotions and senses”(p. 282),
the teacher participants started to be critically aware of how their teaching practices
were “racially bound”(p. 291). Such a critical interrogation of racial identities also
helped the teachers to “positively alter”their teaching and relationship with students
and parents. In Ajayi’s(
2011)research, teacher participants in the multiethnic class-
room raised several critical questions about sexuality, gender roles, and ethnic and
cultural representations in order to create “enabling learning conditions for full social
participation”(p. 408).
Findings also related “identity as self,”namely, “howselvescometobe”Moje
et al., 2009, p. 422). Ntelioglou (2011) argued that involving ELLs to create perfor-
mance-based identity texts in a mandatory drama class cognitively engaged these
students and enhanced their linguistic and social performances. Kendrick et al. (2013)
contended that the learning space of the journalism club together with its mediating
digital tools empowered the girls’construction of self and “their rightful position in
the world”in a rural Kenyan secondary school (p. 410). For example, the girls’
“pretend-imagined identities”as journalists “empoweredtheirsenseofselfand
self-efficacy”(p. 404) and further enabled their competences as writers and journal-
ists. Specifically, with enhanced confidence, the girls also increased their critical
acumen in interviews and writing competences. The eight multilingual undergradu-
ate university students in Marshall, Hayashi, and Yeung’s(2012) study showcased
how various discourses shaped multilingual learners’identities. Findings related that
the participants’design and agency shone through in informal contexts. In contrast,
the prevailing discourses, such as the high-stakes academic writing assignments,
positioned multilingual learners as deficits and constrained their identities as mean-
ing makers, because such discourses “required them to perform and conform to
identities by writing standard academic English”(p. 50). Burke’s(2013) study showed
how two ELLs’online writing practices were empowered by their constructed virtual
identities, such as online poetry writing and virtual gaming, which differed from
those in real-life classrooms. Her findings related that the secondary discourses
within the school context that defined these ELL students (e.g. linguistic abilities)
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 15

were much narrower than their empowering real-life discourses, such as their primary
discourses of family, class backgrounds, and affinity groups (as digitally competent
users). The teacher participant Perminder in Giampapa’s(2010) study used identity
texts to weave ELLs’first and second languages, associated cultures, and identities.
Findings showed that Perminder’s multiliteracies pedagogy “had a deep impact on
students’sense of self-esteem and sense of place”(p.422).Possiblereasonsforsuch
an impact were: (1) the students could receive “positive feedback and affirmation of
self”(Cummins et al., 2005, as cited in Giampapa, 2010, p. 425) from multiple
audiences and (2) students’own linguistic and cultural repertoires and their parents’
and local communities’heritage language literacy practices were valued as “impor-
tant resources in English literacy attainment in the classroom”(p. 426).
Serafini and Gee (2017) noted the New London Group scholars’initial hopes for schools
to “support ‘civic pluralism’in which differences among people in language, culture, and
identity were viewed as a resource for a more robust and inclusive society”(p. 7). Moje et al.
(2009) argued that literacy-and-identities research should move beyond “simple admiration
for or celebration of the many ways that people write, speak, or read themselves into the
world”(p. 434). They therefore recommended future research that links identity and deep
learning. A few of our reviewed studies bordered on this research stream and talked about
the connections between identity enactment and enhanced confidence and cognitive
engagement, which calls for more relevant studies on literacy and identities.
Participatory culture and collaborative learning/design
Of the reviewed research 7.6% (n=5)(Broderick,2014; Crumpler, Handsfield, & Dean, 2011;
Hibbert, 2013; McLean & Rowsell, 2013;Ryu,2011)confirmed that new forms of participa-
tion were empowered by technologies, such as new concepts of “audience”and “evolving
subjectivities.”Of the examined studies 15.2% (n= 10) revealed the impacts of collaborative
learning opportunities, including those related to participatory culture. Studies identified
meaning makers’mediated engagement and enhanced learner agency through scaffolding
and collaborative learning (e.g. Cumming-Potvin, 2007; Cumming-Potvin & Sanford, 2015).
Studies confirmed the transformative power of collaborative meaning making with regard
to new constructions of self (e.g. shifting from at-risk to promising identities) (Broderick,
2014) and new representations of reality (Simon, 2009). Research findings also showed
expanded learning spaces for meaning makers to open up dialogues and interactions with
others, recognize and harness peers’diverse strengths, and develop multiple identities (e.g.
Cumming-Potvin & Sanford, 2015; Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011; Hepple et al., 2014; McLean
&Rowsell,2013; McVee et al., 2008;Skerrett,2013).
To sum up the challenges of actualizing the multiliteracies pedagogy, studies reported:
(1) in-service or pre-service teachers’persistent views of traditional literacy practices in
contrast to their involvement in multiliteracies (e.g. Bokhorst-Heng, Flagg-Williams, &
West, 2014); (2) the lack of pre- and in-service teachers’training in recruiting multimodal
resources and designing learning environments (e.g. Eteokleous & Pavlou, 2015); (3) insuffi-
cient, inappropriate, or missing materials (e.g. Heydon et al., 2015); (4) multiliteracies
pedagogy required an “institutional openness”thatallowedlearnerstohavestrongvoices
in meaning making and make meaning creatively (e.g. Erstad et al., 2007, p. 195); and (5)
multiliteracies pedagogy was not aligned with the prescriptive literacy curriculum and
expectations of standardized literacy tests (e.g. Mills & Exley, 2014;Tan&Guo,2014;
16 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

Towndrow et al., 2013). This structural challenge echoes Mills (2010) review on literature on
New Literacy Studies from 1999 to 2009 that “many features of new literacy practices remain
‘untapped’by standardized literacy tests”(p. 262). Our reviewed studies also furthered the
inquiry into what should account for such curriculum-performance-assessment misfit. Tan
and Guo (2014) presented that the culture of standardized literacy tests shaped learners’
conceptions of what counts as literacy, namely, “traditional literacy was more important
than multiliteracies”(p. 35). Towndrow et al. (2013) contended that the Singapore English
language syllabus showed the curriculum decision makers’interest in multimodal literacy,
however, the hidden curriculum of “‘accountability’–obsessed educational cultures”
tended to “sideline the creative and communitive aspects”of literacy (p. 346). Luke sug-
gested “a re-emphasis on scrutinizing structural power and its effects in classrooms”(Garcia
et al., in press). He also warned of the appropriation of multiliteracies into the “same system
of standardization and commodification that defined and delimited print literacy and
traditional curriculum”(n.p.).
Limitations and significance of the study
This systematic review analysed findings from 66 qualitative studies on multiliteracies
pedagogy and synthesized the evidence on the effectiveness of multiliteracies pedagogy
in varied geographical and schooling contexts. A major challenge of conducting this
systematic review concerns the general criticism of qualitative meta-analysis. To quote
Timulak (2014), “the ambition to provide a more comprehensive picture or understanding
of a certain phenomenon/a is somewhat contradictory to the nature of most qualitative
research, which cherishes more contextualized knowledge”(p. 492). Such an ambition was
especially challenging when our systematic review was about multiliteracies scholarship,
which buttresses fluidity and diversity of knowledge construction.
Another critique of the systematic review of qualitative studies refers to “a particular
synthesis coloured by an interpretive perspective”(Timulak, 2014,p.492).Creswell(2007)
and Kilbourn (2006) agreed that the phenomena in any academic research are assumed to
be filtered through a certain point of view. There is no such thing as a value-free or unbiased
interpretation of an event. In this study, we secured inter-rater agreements wherever
possible to ensure credibility (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) of the systematic review findings. For
instance, the interactive and recursive processes of subtheme analysis of the affordances
and challenges of the multiliteracies pedagogy were a big time and financial commitment.
However, we believe such processes were fruitful to generate trustworthy findings about
the reported effectiveness of multiliteracies pedagogy.
We did not consider a validation test of the five-point Likert scale as the appraised
aspects were strictly in line with the existent literature on what aspects should be
appraised when conducting meta-synthesis of qualitative studies (e.g. Timulak, 2014).
As mentioned earlier, inter-raters’comprehension discrepancies in item content incurred
major inter-rater disagreements. For our future systematic review inquiries, we are
considering revising the content of the items and conducting a validation study to
obtain reliability and validity data of the scale.
Systematic reviews often provide more “substantive”conceptualization than indi-
vidual investigations (Timulak, 2014, p. 482). This current study might also provide
insights into the theoretical evolvement and pedagogical appropriation of
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 17

multiliteracies for the next decades of the 21st century. This systematic review also
has the potential to contribute to the current understanding of the trends, strengths,
and limitations of research on multiliteracies worldwide. The knowledge synthesis on
the effectiveness and challenges of multiliteracies pedagogy might potentially assist
literacy teachers, teacher educators, and literacy researchers to address cultural and
linguistic diversity, global connectivity, and the ever-changing information and new
technologies.
Note
1. Features of participatory culture include: (1) increased civic engagement in democratic
spaces; low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, (2) strong support or
informal mentorship for sharing new creative forms, (3) collaborative problem-solving to
complete tasks and develop new knowledge, (4) strong member belief in the value of their
contributions, and (5) strong sense of membership or social connections among members
(Jenkins, 2009).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Faculty of Education, Western University, London, Ontario,
Canada, for its generous support for this systematic review project through its Internal Research
Grant.
Notes on contributors
Zheng Zhang, PhD, is an assistant professor, Faculty of Education, Western University, London,
Ontario, Canada (zzhan58@uwo.ca). Her research interests include curriculum studies of transna-
tional education, literacy and biliteracy curriculum, internationalization of curriculum, multimodal
literacy, cross-border teacher education undergirded by new media literacies, and multiliteracies
pedagogy in culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. These primary research areas have
addressed pertinent educational challenges in the era of changes with increasing cultural and
linguistic diversity, rapid global connectivity, and fast-paced technological changes.
Joelle Nagle, is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, Western University, London, Ontario,
Canada. Her research is situated within multiliteracies pedagogies, multimodality and digital
literacies, and teacher professional development and learning in language and literacy education.
Bethany McKishnie, MA, was an MA student at the Faculty of Education, Western University,
London, Ontario, Canada; e-mail: bford3@uwo.ca. Through a multiliteracies lens, her research
focus pertains to transnational students’literacy and identity options, transnational curricular
studies, transnational literacy pedagogy, and transnational teacher development.
Zhen Lin, MA, is a research assistant at the Faculty of Education, Western University, London,
Ontario, Canada; contact information: zlin95@uwo.ca. Her research interests include multimodality,
digital literacy, resources for literacy learning (especially with a focus on new technologies for
literacy learning) and multimodal literacy, multiliteracies pedagogies, early literacy, and second
language acquisition and teaching.
18 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

Wanjing Li is a PhD student at the Faculty of Education, Western University, London, Ontario,
Canada; e-mail: wli466@uwo.ca. Her research interests span curriculum studies, literacies, and
international and transnational education undergirded by multiliteracies, particularly transnational
curricula in culturally and linguistically diverse school settings.
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Appendix A. Deductive and Inductive Thematic Synthesis
Themes of MLT as
Identified in
Seminal Work
on
Multiliteracies
Study ID of
studies
addressing
themes in
findings
Exemplary direct quotes from the reviewed studies about findings
Deductive Themes: Themes of Multiliteracies as Identified in Seminal Work
Situated Practice 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, 13, 14, 16,
18, 19, 21,
23, 25, 27,
29, 31, 33,
34, 36, 37,
39, 40, 41,
42, 43, 48,
49, 50, 51,
52, 56, 57,
58, 60, 62
“Interpretations of videos by elementary schools are not a decontextualized
practice; instead, they are rooted in specific cultural models; that is, how they
think and value from a particular cultural perspective. In this sense, meanings
of videos are socially and culturally constructed understandings of the
students’realities.”(Ajayi, 2011, p. 406)
“In comparing Oriental pictographic alphabets with the English phonemic one,
there is a realisation that writing systems are culturally situated, and that words
are culturally determined abstract symbols.”(Barden, 2012, p. 126)
“Both students made use of powerful literacies to advance their understanding of
socially situated literacies common in adolescent practices, such as chat lines and
gaming. One such socially situated practicewouldbelookingatJapaneaseAnime
and practice drawing such as the figure drawn by Aamir.”(Burke, 2013,p.38)
Overt Instruction 2, 10, 13, 22,
25, 36, 58,
62
“The teacher assigned the following questions for homework: (a) What does the
visual image of Aurora mean to you, (b) What do you think of how Aurora is
presented in the picture? Explain your answer. (c) Do you like the role of the
prince in the video? Explain you answer. (e) What does the use of color
suggest to you in the two pictures? (f) What does this video tell you about
the society in which we live? Each student was also given Figures 1 and 2
(taken with a digital camera on the TV screen and printed in class) to take
home. The teacher later explained the purpose of the homework: ‘‘It is not
only for students to get help from adults around them, but also they and
their parents can talk about the video within their own cultural experiences.’’
At the beginning of week five, the teacher played the video again as
students worked on the following questions on the overhead projector: (a)
Draw a picture to tell me what this video means to you. (b) On a separate
piece of paper, answer each of the following questions in a full sentence: (i)
Describe what you have drawn in four to five sentences? (ii) What does this
picture mean to you? (iii) Why do you draw the picture? (iv) Why do you
choose the colors you use? (v) What do the colors mean to you? (vi) Pretend
that your picture can talk; what will it say to you? The teacher stopped the
video from time to time for the students’comments, clarifications, and
questions.”(Ajayi, 2011, p. 405)
“The teacher-aide’s words and actions made it quite clear to students that
they were expected to follow her directions and therefore complete each
activity in a particular way and in a particular time frame.”(Henderson,
2011,p.157)
“Marie-Paul and Brigitte overtly instructed during their project by using
talking circles (Foy, 2009) to discuss the hunting of Canada geese. Marie
–Paul also shared her hunting story during the talking circles. During
these sharing activities, she taught new words in Innu related to this
traditional activity. . ..In the second half of the same day, Brigitte
encouraged the students to tell the same hunting story to her in French.
She taught them some French vocabulary related to the topic. By
sharing, s tudents and teacher learned from each other. . ..The mural and
the talking circles in Frence and Innu were, simultaneously, learning and
conceptualizing occasions and multimodal learning resources.”(Lavoie
et al., 2012,p.204)
(Continued)
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 23

(Continued).
Critical Framing 2, 3, 7, 9, 12,
13, 14, 22,
23, 26, 31,
33, 34, 36,
41, 42, 45,
48, 49, 50,
57, 58, 60,
62
“Even though there is no inherent association between witches and black
color or between witches and women, the students constructed their
‘‘model’’ of a witch based on their previous understandings and cultural
values of the social group in Mexico where they lived the first 6 years of
their lives. In this case, Jaime interpreted the meaning of black in the
light of his socially shared symbolic meaning of black. Equally important,
Guadalupe contested the power relations between men and women in
the video. She rejected the dominant, male-imposed view of witches as
something bad; instead, she interpreted witchcraft as a woman’spower
that challenged and exposed the weakness of men’s claim of an all-
pervasive power (e.g., men can be intimidated by a woman’s
supernatural power).”(Ajayi, 2011, p. 407)
“For achieving this phase, teachers help the students to analyze critically
what they are learning. Teachers assist them to understand the source
from which the information came, as opposed to just viewing the
information out of context.”(Lavoie et al., 2012,p.204)
“The metalanguage was designed as a scaffold for the teacher and her
students to focus on the modes of meaning- making, so that they could
critique the power relations inherent in the production and
interpretation of multimodal and multimedia texts. It was intended that
when her students could understand how meaning-making was realised
in multimodal and multimedia texts, they could apply the same
understanding when they were positioned as text producers.”(Tan &
Guo, 2014,p.32)
Transformed
Practice
2, 9, 10, 13, 14,
16, 18, 19,
21, 23, 25,
29, 36, 42,
48, 50, 51,
52, 56, 57,
58, 62
“Pre-disposed through family discourses, which provided this type of social
access, the families’local literacy practices offered a repository of knowledge
that Lourdes could draw upon to bring greater meaning and understanding
to her own world.”(Burke, 2013, p. 40)
“Jessie now becomes a learning designer and manager and the students are
burgeoning experts. The welcoming of students’experiences from their
multiple outside-of-school experiences is one of the more endearing
hallmarks of modern schooling that translates well to a transformative
orientation.”(Exley, 2007, p. 107)
“In classrooms that are very multicultural, such as our Toronto drama
classroom, we have observed that when the teacher’s pedagogical
practice activated students’prior knowledge and built upon their
personal and cultural narratives, as in the clearly personal and culturally
situated narratives presented, the students found the literacy practices
in their classroom more purposeful, and they consequently appeared
more willing to invest themselves in their learning process.”(Gallagher
& Ntelioglou, 2011,p. 326)
“The fourth and last phase, transformed practice, occurs when students
create new meaning with existing meaning by using it in their own
context or cultural situation. In other words, it is putting what was
learned into practice but in a new situation.”(Lavoie et al., 2012, p. 205)
Inductive Themes: Emergent Themes of Multiliteracies in the Reviewed Studies
Multimodality &
Synaesthesia
2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8,
10, 13, 16,
19, 22, 23,
25, 26, 27,
29, 31, 32,
33, 34, 37,
41, 45, 46,
48, 49, 53,
54, 55, 56,
62, 63, 64
“Layout designer Blake worked with artist Jen, and writers Adam and Sara
to visually design this spread. After getting Jen’s input, Blake adapted
her artwork so that it frames the poems and bleeds offthe page.
Bleeding is a design element used to give the appearance that the
picture extends beyond the page. In this case, because the artwork has
been cut into two sections, as shown in Figure 5, the bleeding creates a
wrapping effect, where one can imagine the artwork circling the journal.
Saturated color is also an important visual element in this layout, and
reflects Jen’s connection with reggae culture and music.”(Broderick,
2014,p.205)
(Continued)
24 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

(Continued).
“The theme of cars embedded in simple printed texts, namely magazines,
emerged in Nicholas’non-fiction reading. The results of Wilhelm and Smith’s
research (2005) linked a number of boys’reading interests to highly visual
texts that assisted comprehension and helped these boys feel competent as
readers. For Nicholas, the magazines Street Machine and Fast Forward
provided textual support in the form of photos; Nicholas read the brief texts,
consulted the photos, and asked a family member for help if in doubt about
a word’s meaning.”(Cumming-Potvin, 2007, p. 493)
“Providing a classroom atmosphere and modes of communication in which
students give re- spectful and productive feedback directly to each other is
not only good for the social health of a classroom but also makes the work of
re- vising writing more meaningful. This practice improves considerably the
work that students ultimately produce. Using multimodal sources to inspire
students’writing is effective. For example, the teacher in this classroom
asked students to bring artifacts to class such as objects, pictures, stories,
poems, drawings or music about a specific theme, topic, or event of interest.
She then used these creatively to extend students’interest in the topic and
create a sense of the individuals who were part of their collective.”(Gallagher
& Ntelioglou, 2011, p. 329)
Literacy and
Identity
2, 7, 9, 13, 14,
21, 28, 31,
33, 35, 37,
39, 46, 47,
50, 55, 60
“The finding here suggests that researchers and educators need to address how
students’gender identities, cultural repertoires, cultural models, home
values, etc. contribute to a unique understanding of multimodal practices in
the classroom.”(Ajayi, 2011, p. 408)
“As the quote by Johnson (2007) that we used at the beginning of this
section suggests, the meanings that the focal teachers constructed about
race and their evolving racial identities involved a variety of multimodal
activities and experiences that engaged their emotions and senses. Across
the three courses, they were positioned racially as White. Their experiences
were continually framed racially; the readings and the quest speakers framed
their experiences racially as well. Therefore, the teachers had to embody
their racial identities during the courses, and they subsequently modified
their discourse and ultimately their production and dissemination of their
understandings of their racial identities. Interactions with others across time
in the course community required acknowledging their racial positioning.”
(Brock et al., 2012, p. 282)
“As identity forming or positioning agents (Apple, 1980; Davies & Harré,
1990) schools were complicit in stripping Nina of a valuable linguistic
resource for literacy learning. An important tenet of critical race theory is the
value of the stories individuals tell of their experiences with racism and
discrimination. These narratives become counter stories to grand narratives
of progress that obscure ongoing oppression people of color experience
(Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Tate, 1997).”(Skerrett, 2013, p. 341)
“Lourdes positioned herself to empower her own learning as well as that of
other English language learners in the classroom. Her comments suggest
that success in her life would have to be through good grades and language
with “no errors,”echoing the secondary discourses, which guided her
language arts classroom. Her new identity was implicitly encouraged by the
classrooms limitations.”(Burke, p. 42, 2013)
Participatory
Culture
1
8, 14, 29, 41,
55
“While Caitlin and her peers shared personal and professional stories on-line,
they gained experience and learned from each other, suggesting the practice
dimension of the CoP (Wenger, White & Smith, 2009).”(Cumming-Potvin &
Sanford, 2015, p. 33)
“It is designed to support teachers and students as they plan together,
gather feedback and build upon each other’s ideas in ways that reflect the
participatory culture of learning in the 21st century. It creates an ‘audience’
for our work that allows us to learn more about our unique cultural identities
and ways of engaging with all forms of text.”(Hibbert, 2013, p. 32)
“The expansion of knowledge from an expert or more capable peers to
newcomers and the share of their works with others were common in
beyond-game culture”(Ryu, 2011,p.8)
(Continued)
PEDAGOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 25

Appendix B. Reference List of All Reviewed Papers
(1) Ajayi, L. (2010). Preservice teachers’knowledge, attitudes, and perception of their preparation
to teach multiliteracies/multimodality. The Teacher Educator, 46(1), 6–31.
(2) Ajayi, L. (2011). A multiliteracies pedagogies: Exploring semiotic possibilities of a Disney video
in a third grade diverse classroom. Urban Review, 43, 396–413.
(3) Barden, O. (2012). “. . .If we were cavemen we’dbefine”: Facebook as a catalyst for critical
literacy learning by dyslexic sixth-form students. Literacy, 46(3), 123–132.
(4) Bharuthram S., & Kies, C. (2013). Introducing e-learning in a South African higher education
institution: Challenges arising from an intervention and possible responses. British Journal of
Educational Technology, 44(3), 410–420.
(5) Boivin, N., Albakri, R. N., Yunus, Z. B. M., Mohammed, H., & Muniandy, N. (2014). Assessing
emergent, social, and multiliteracy practices in urban Malaysian homes. Malaysian Journal of
ELT Research, 10(2), 34–54.
(Continued).
Collaborative
Learning/
Design
8, 13, 14, 19,
21, 26, 41,
42, 57, 60
“In these challenging moments, I conferenced with Larissa, and then
intervened to help the group negotiate a solution. My own insider status
helped me guide Larissa in developing a distributive leadership style, one
where she looked to the group to resolve community issues. Despite the
tensions, Larissa regularly acknowledged the community’s value and this is
what sustained her: ‘I don’t think there is anything better than a
collaborative effort for projects such as this because you get so many
viewpoints and ideas from each person and when you put them together it
makes the initial little idea turn into a genius masterpiece. (Larissa, Wiki post,
3/26/10).”(Broderick, 2014, p. 204)
“Drawing on a multiliteracies framework (The New London Group, 2000) and
the four resources reading model (Luke & Freebody, 1999) to interpret
Nicholas’progress in literacy, particularly during reading circles, results
suggest that multiliteracies and interweaving scaffolding and diverse texts in
meaningful tasks can encourage agency in student learning across contexts.
As Nicholas engaged in reading circle tasks, it can be argued that the zone of
proximal development varied in relation to interpersonal relationships,
interaction between participants (Stone, 1993), features of proposed tasks
(Donovon & Smolkin, 2002), and contexts of learning.”(Cumming-Potvin,
2007, p, 499)
“Using collective writing (such as collaboratively creating a script) as a
prompt or source for what Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) call
transformative writing opportunities and what The New London Group
(1996) and Kalantzis and Cope (2008) call transformative pedagogy of
multiliteracies is novel for many students. Here, learners’subjectivities and
experiences are taken into account so they can engage in multiple modes of
meaning making and extensive dialogues about genre, character
development, audience and mood. These dialogues provide opportunities for
scaffolding or the transformation of solo ideas into communal ones.”
(Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011, p. 329)
“Collective writing and creation inspired by personal or cultural narratives (as
in Erica’s experience) can invite students to critically engage with the world
in order to bring thought and action together to reimagine their relationship
to others. Using this social power of drama to help students encounter ideas
and experiences different from their own is an imaginative way to raise
fundamental issues of difference in classrooms and to challenge the
constraining social roles so often ascribed to high school students.”
(Gallagher & Ntelioglou, 2011, p. 329)
“While Caitlin and her peers shared personal and professional stories on-line,
they gained experience and learned from each other, suggesting the practice
dimension of the CoP (Wenger, White & Smith, 2009).”(Cumming-Potvin &
Sanford, 2015, p. 33)
26 Z. ZHANG ET AL.

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