Introduction to Multiliteracies in motion : current theory and practice

Western civilization stands at a turning point. On one side of this point are the structures and forms that have upheld its institutions and systems in the past. On the other stands possible ways forward that address the complicated situation of the present, where global economic fluctuations dominate social life in ever more powerful ways, and the purposes and through- lines for educational practice are increasingly more obscure given these tremendous fluctuations. One might legitimately ask the question: Why turn back the clock and re-examine the notion of “multiliteracies,” that was positioned by the New London Group in 1996 as a useful term to give sense to the ways in which literacy practice is colliding with new technological modes of representation and shifting heterogeneous demographics? To answer this question one must consider the changes that are taking place in the educational world, and the ways in which literacy practice has dealt with these changes through classroom innovation, research into best practice, and theorizations of the critical factors that are animating change and making change more than a rhetorical call to arms for politicians or system managers intent on improving efficiency or introducing new technology due to commercial concerns. Change has become closely aligned with all aspects of literacy through the ways in which education has necessarily evolved under pressure from oscillating financial circumstances, and the adaptive and flexible elements inherent within multiliteracies make it a well-designated fit to keep on explaining continual literacy morphology. In this first section, we will explain the elastic connection between multiliteracies and changing literacies