This thesis explores the experiences of Chinese children acquiring literacy in both Chinese and English in Scotland. A three-dimensional research design is adopted in order to take into account the influential domains where children are exposed to literacy learning. First, it investigates the attitudes and approaches to literacy learning in fourteen Chinese homes, with evidence gathered from semi-structured interviews with parents. Second, observations of and conversations with children and Chinese teachers in a Chinese complementary school in the central belt of Scotland provide insights into the approaches to teaching and learning Chinese literacy. Third, miscue analysis of reading and thinking aloud protocols are conducted in mainstream schools with six Chinese boys, aged eight to nine years, in order to analyse in depth the reading strategies deployed by children in their attempts to gain meaning from both Chinese and English texts. The findings reveal that Chinese parents provide a rich learning environment where children consolidate and in some cases extend the literacy learning experiences gained in the complementary Chinese school. What also emerges from the research is that while the children in the study have a great deal of metalinguistic and metacognitive knowledge gained from learning diverse writing systems, this knowledge is not recognised within policy or practice in mainstream schools. Finally, Hornberger’s Continua of Biliteracy are used as a model both in order to analyse the mosaic of qualitative data generated during the research process and to provide a framework for a discussion of educational policy and practice in multilingual Scotland.

La rencontre permanente des langues et des identités culturelles est une évolution incontournable qui fait suite à l’accroissement de la mobilité des populations au cours de ces dernières années. Elle entraîne une évolution de la composition des sociétés qui implique une éducation linguistique adaptée aux nouveaux besoins de communication plurielle des individus. Les alliances interlinguistiques et l’intercompréhension de plusieurs langues sont des stratégies favorisant le plurilinguisme et permettant de gérer les conflits éventuels dus aux chocs interculturels et interlinguistiques. Les compétences métacognitives transversales et les capacités intellectuelles polyvalentes que ces stratégies plurilingues développent semblent parfaitement adaptées aux besoins de notre société mondialisée qui demande des capacités de réflexion stratégique pour faciliter la résolution des problèmes interculturels. / The permanent contact between languages and cultural identities is an incontrovertible evolution that results from the last few years’ increase in the population mobility. It brings an evolution in the composition of societies that involves a linguistic education which is adapted in the people’s need for plural communication. Interlinguistic alliances and intercomprehension of several languages are strategies that promote pluringuism and permit to settle the disputes resulting from intercultural and interlinguistic shocks. Metacognitive transversal skills and the polyvalent intellectual abilities developed by these plurilingual strategies seem to be perfectly adapted in the needs of our globalized society which demands abilities of strategic reflection in order to facilitate solving intercultural problems.