Cultural Literacy in Asian Indian American Students

Abstract

The cultivation of ‘cultural literacy’ in students from multicultural backgrounds may occur outside schooling practices in the US due to curricular framing and a lack of interest in integrating cultural education at schools. ‘Cultural literacy’ warrants student participation and requires a conducive learning environment where multiethnic students can seek inspiration through exploration. The San Antonio Writing Project organizes literacy project called the Kahani Project, and it fosters creativeness and facilitates authentic expression of cultural funds of knowledge of Indian American students. Performing arts including dance and music engage Indian students and enable them to learn about their culture, heritage, and religion. The Kahani Project is culturally contextualized writing activity, where Asian Indian American students write about their generational practices that may not addressed in schools in the US. This qualitative study explores two narratives written for the Kahani Project. The study utilized Leiblich et al., holistic content analysis to arrive at themes, categories, and meta categories. The findings revealed Indian students’ willingness to preserve their culture through writing about Indian dance and music. The second inference of this study was that Indian students’ heritage is neglected and excluded in US curriculum.

Keywords

• Asian Indian Students
• Cultural literacy
• Kahani Project
• Dance
• Music