In a country that is more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before and in a state where more than a third of residents speak a language other than English at home, literacy takes on a new meaning. Our workforce is changing. Staffing shortages are impacting a wide range of fields, from education to laboratory science, and essential workers are demanding better pay, more flexible hours, and more equitable workplaces. How can we build a more resilient workforce and improve retention across industries in Texas? Today, we need more skills than ever before to work in our interconnected world. Developing nontraditional literacies can pave the path toward a more resilient workforce in Texas—for employees and employers alike.
What are nontraditional literacies?
Nontraditional literacies extend beyond the ability to read, write, or compute basic math. They cover a wide range of areas where we can learn new skills and further strengthen existing abilities that are critical for today’s global workforce.
Consider the many literacies at play in the process of applying for a job: technological and informational literacies needed to navigate online job boards; media literacy necessary to understand not only the job listing itself, but also news coverage of the company and employees’ workplace reviews; sociocultural literacy required to draft a cover letter and respond appropriately in an interview; psychosocial literacy, including an understanding of finance, which is needed to negotiate pay and select a benefits package or budget for insurance; and, of course, the many skill sets necessary to perform the job itself.
In their new book, Global Citizenship for Adult Education, Dr. Petra A. Robinson, Dr. Kamala V. Williams, and Maja Stojanovic deliver strategies and exercises to develop literacy skill sets that are interconnected and build on one another. They include skill sets that empower individuals to shape more equitable workplaces, communities and society as a whole. Dr. Robinson developed the Critical Literacies Advancement Model, known as the CLAM, to illustrate the importance and interconnectedness of these literacies and to outline the implications of these literacies for informed decision making, behaviors, and actions, especially as a means of promoting equity and social justice.
The CLAM organizes literacies into five core categories, which facilitate the development of practical skills that we can then put into action and affect positive social change. The core categories and examples of each include:
- Foundational literacies: reading, writing, science, math
- Sociocultural literacies: multilingualism and cultural competency
- Technological and informational literacies: cyber security, data, media
- Psychosocial and environmental literacies: health, food, finance, environment
- Social justice literacies: human rights, gender, race, equity
The opportunities for skills development are wide-reaching. To develop gender literacy, we can practice addressing people by their preferred pronouns. To improve our own health literacy, we can look critically at our own diets, fill nutritional gaps, and then work to ensure that all communities have access to nutritious foods.
What is the ‘global citizenship’ approach?
Dr. Robinson and Dr. Williams, who met early in their careers while completing their doctorate degrees at Texas A&M University, have found many intersections between their respective fields of human resource development/adult education and urban education. Dr. Robinson, Associate Professor at Louisiana State University, and Dr. Williams, manager of Prairie View A&M University’s Northwest Houston Center, initially planned to co-author an article related to the topic. Over time, the joint project grew into a book.
Dr. Robinson explained, “It started with a simple idea: how we can live and thrive in a more just, equitable world.” Then, they brought in 40 scholars from 20 countries to contribute chapters that shaped the book’s global approach. The goal? To create avenues for critical thinking in our increasingly interconnected world. Dr. Robinson added, “We go beyond politics to look at personhood with a humanizing approach to life, learning, and education.”
Each section concludes with a practical exercise to further develop these literacies. While beneficial for students, the tools in the book can be adapted for a variety of audiences. “We’re hoping educational leaders as well as corporate leaders pick up this book and make the decision that they want to develop their teams to be more globally aware,” said Dr. Williams. “It starts with leadership. If leadership approaches literacies as a way to promote social change, then that impacts all decisions.”
Cultural competency for a resilient workforce
This wide-reaching impact rings especially true for cultural competencies, an area explored in Heather McGhee’s book, The Sum of Us. McGhee defines cultural competency as “the ability to collaborate and feel at ease with people from different racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.” Studies across a collective 300 colleges show that Black, white, Asian American, and Hispanic students who were exposed to diversity-related courses and interactions with students of races, nationalities, and religions that differ from their own demonstrated higher learning outcomes. These outcomes included higher intellectual engagement and improved critical thinking and social and interpersonal skills than demonstrated by their peers in more homogenous, majority-white educational settings.
Today, US corporations spend 8 billion dollars each year on diversity training. But as we have learned from university- and workforce studies, building cultural competencies must start earlier, long before individuals begin their job search. Travel, study abroad programs, learning alongside international students, and racially and ethnically diverse environments are a few avenues that facilitate cultural competency skills development.
School curricula also play an influential role in cultural competency development. Dr. Robinson explains that we are directed toward certain career paths from an early age by the messages we receive in school and in the media. As an example, she asks us to question a science textbook. Are children of all backgrounds able to see themselves in the field? Do the skin tones and names in the book reflect their own? Who is regarded as the expert? Students are also guided toward particular career paths and away from others by media representation. Consider, for instance, the portrayal of scientists in mainstream TV series.
In addition to career paths, cultural competency, and more broadly, cultural humility influences our approach to language learning. As Dr. Williams explains, “If you’ve only been exposed to a small community where everyone speaks one language, then there’s a process of ‘othering’ that happens, and it’s easy to view multilingualism as a deficit.” Dr. Williams invites us to consider an alternative approach. Rather than marginalizing ESL students by placing them in separate classes, we can imagine an immersion program where all students learn a second language together.
Literacy in action in Texas
Dr. Robinson was an international student herself. Born in Jamaica, she reflects on her own experience of pursuing her Ph.D. in Texas. She was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. As part of her program, she conducted research at Texas A&M University’s Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning (TCALL). “TCALL brought me here to do work related to literacy, and although this has further evolved,” she said, “it speaks emphatically to Texas’ commitment to advancing literacies.”
Dr. Robinson and Dr. Williams emphasize that the path toward a more equitable world relies not on becoming an expert on any one literacy, but on continuing to develop several literacies simultaneously. “Leaders,” says Dr. Williams, “have to be literate in many areas—not experts, just literate.”
As Texas and the US as a whole grows more and more diverse, nontraditional, critical literacies can help us break down biases and prevent gatekeeping that occurs in the recruitment and selection process. By developing these literacies, we can promote job opportunities in outlets that will reach a diverse pool of candidates and question stereotypes—including ways of dress, hairstyles, and language—that dictate professionalism. When we better understand one another and our interconnectedness, we can build more equitable and collaborative spaces for everyone to live, work, and thrive.