ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter summarizes the various fi ndings from ALTUR presented in previous chapters of the book and makes recommendations for educational policies and practices as well as for future research on adolescent literacies in multicultural contexts. Our answers to the main question guiding the ALTUR project are wide-ranging: What factors, challenges, and contexts contribute to and constrain literacy achievement among at-risk adolescent learners with culturally diverse backgrounds? The answers to this question are corroborated from multiple sources of empirical data or observations, but they are more suggestive than conclusive. In line with the research purposes described in Chapter 1, we discuss particularly the implications of those factors, challenges, and contexts that appear to have “made a diff erence” for the ALTUR students’ development of literacy and so should be of value to, because they are potentially within the control of, educators and educational systems. We present the implications of our fi ndings, not as steadfast conclusions or defi nitive arguments, but rather as issues that emerged as central to our inquiry and about which we believe educators may reasonably take concerted actions to promote the development of literacies among adolescents in multicultural contexts.
