Affordances of Multilingual and Multimodal Literacy Engagements of Immigrant High School Students: A Scoping Review

This article presents a scoping review of literacy research that employs multilingual and multimodal literacy narratives and discussions as tools for enabling immigrant youth to explore their intersectional identities and experiences of inequality. It encourages a re-examination of emerging educational/societal issues, incorporating these interventions as a catalyst for discussion. Utilizing a descriptive-analytic approach for data extraction, this scoping review has mapped out prevailing trends in the literature, research methodologies employed, and the types and objectives of multilingual and multimodal literacy interventions. The findings underscore a growing trend over the past decade in adopting multilingual and multimodal literacy interventions with immigrant youth, often employing collaborative research approaches such as participatory action research. The most frequently utilized multilingual and multimodal texts in such studies include digital storytelling materials (comprising images and video), spoken word poetry, photographs, and bilingual books. These interventions are typically designed to (a) encourage youth to express their knowledge, experiences, and identities; (b) examine and address educational and societal issues and opportunities; and (c) challenge dominant ideologies, practices, and discourses through the voices of immigrant youth. The review discusses the transformative possibilities for immigrant youth and encourages rethinking the language learning, literacy, and curriculum process. The data advocates for eclectic approaches and interventions to help newcomer youth understand their lived experiences and societal issues and encourages educators to respond in kind. Plain Language Summary This article is about a study that looked at how immigrant youth learn about their identities and the inequalities they may face through different kinds of literacy, like reading and writing, that use multiple languages and ways of expressing ideas, like images and videos. The study suggests that these kinds of literacy can help us think more deeply about important issues in education and society. The researchers used a scoping review method to study many different articles and reports to see what kinds of research have been done on this topic. They wanted to know what types of trends they could find, what methods researchers used, and what they hoped to achieve with these kinds of literacy activities. They found that over the past ten years, more a