Brazil/Canada Knowledge Exchange: Developing Transnational Literacies

Abstract

This paper briefly introduces a partnership project in which several colleagues in Canada and Brazil are currently engaged. If our application for funding is successful, we hope eventually to extend our partnership and research collaborations beyond those currently involved to include other partners in Brazil and Canada. This interdisciplinary research partnership builds on an evolving network linking universities and local teachers groups in Brazil and Canada in collaborative research designed to foster the co-creation of new knowledge developing transnational literacy. Transnational literacy encompasses the growing list of literacies necessary for successful innovation in the global knowledge economy. They combine global consciousness with the development of skill sets or competencies suitable for full participation in the knowledge society, including multilingualism and cross-cultural understanding, the capacity to make informed choices and to create new ways of working in a rapidly changing world. These literacies encompass the digital, multimodal, informational, and critical literacies associated with both traditional reading and writing skills and the range of new literacies required by evolving information technologies and an increasingly integrated world.