Jim Cummins CV Publications The Multiliteracy Project The Dual Language Showcase e-Lective Language Learning Diversity As Resources

James Cummins is Professor in the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Cummins teaches graduate courses in Second Language Education Program. The course that he recently taught include “Critical Pedagogy, Language and Cultural Diversity,” “Research Seminar on Second Language Literacy Education,” “Bilingualism and Bilingual Education” and “Special Topics in Second Language Program: Computer-supported Approaches to Academic Language Learning.”

Dr. Cummins’s research has focused on the nature of language proficiency and literacy development of learners of English as an additional or second language. In recent years, he particularly emphasizes the social and educational barriers that limit academic success for culturally diverse students. He is involved in a variety of research projects to develop multilingual and multicultural approaches to promoting ESL students’ academic engagement and success. One of his recent publications, Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society (California Association for Bilingual Education, 2001), will provide us with his broad insights on this issue.

His article “Empowering Minority Students: A Framework for Intervention” in Harvard Educational Review (56), 1986, was selected for Harvard Educational Review (HER) Classics Series as one of the 12 articles published in the HER between 1931 and 2000 for the importance of their contribution to education in 2000.

With a SSHRC grant of large scale, Dr. Cummins currently conducts a three-year research project entitled “Initiative on the New Economy Research Alliances,” which is also called “From literacy to multiliteracies: Designing learning environments for knowledge generation within the new economy.” This research project aims to increase the academic literacy attainment hat education systems currently focus on, and also to extend current conceptions of literacy beyond traditional print-based literacy to the multiple forms of literacy that are increasingly relevant to the new economy.

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