Abstract
This chapter examines interrelationships between children’s explicit knowledge and awareness of diglossia (EKAD) and educational attainment data in 1456 Syrian Arabic-speaking 2nd and 3rd graders using the Syria Holistic Assessment for Learning (SHAL), an assessment of literacy, social-emotional, and math abilities developed by regional literacy and numeracy experts, practitioners with knowledge of the Syrian curriculum, and developmental psychologists with psychometrics expertise.
A multi-level mixture model was applied whereby individual scores were nested in schools and predictor factors impacting literacy and numeracy attainment were identified. Factors modelled were: age, gender, caregiver reading engagement, availability of reading materials at home, letter and number identification, number discrimination, vocabulary, listening comprehension for Standard Arabic, and EKAD. EKAD showed developmental changes in its interactions with attainment scores across age groups, with primary effects on literacy development and evidence that it also affects numeracy skills in older children.
We discuss the complex relationships between EKAD and Arabic literacy acquisition, with an emphasis on learning in war zones. We highlight the importance of diglossic awareness as a skill to build into educational assessment and pedagogical practices in diglossic communities, and show how methodological innovations like those reported here can assist in assessment and interpretation of educational data.