“Literacy”

Hindsight:

New Literacy Studies

Technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformationsAlpine Rendez-Vous 2009, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Margit BöckDepartment of Communication Studies, University of Salzburg

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New Literacy Studies NLS

James P. Gee (1990): Sociolinguistics and Literacies. Ideology in Discourses. London: Taylor & Francis (3rd edition 2007)

• NLS argued against an understanding of literacy as a “cognitive phenomenon”; readers and writers engaged in mental processes like encoding, decoding, retrieving information, inferencing, comprehension, etc.; ability to read/write as things people do inside their heads ( the “skills view”)

NLS:• those who “write” / make texts or “read” / are engaged with texts

are engaged in social practices with cultural resources • these resources, e.g. written language or image, are used

differently in different practices by different social groups• literacy / literacies; “multiliteracies” (Cope/Kalantzis)

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Ascription of “meaning” to reading, writing, different forms of texts, etc.

„People learn a given way of reading or writing by participating

in (or, at least, coming to understand) the distinctive social and

cultural practices of different social and cultural groups. When

these groups teach or ‘apprentice’ people to read and write in

certain ways, they never stop there. They teach them to act,

interact, talk, know, believe, and value in certain ways as well,

ways that ‘go with’ how they write and read (Gee 1990, 1992,

2003).” (Gee 2010, in print)

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Literacy events / literacy practices

„[…] literacy events are activities where literacy has a role. Usually

there is a written text, or texts, central to the activity and there may

be talk around the text. Events are observable episodes which arise

from practices and are shaped by them. The notion of events

stresses the situated nature of literacy, that it always exists in a social

context.” (Barton/Hamilton 2000: 8; emphasis in original)

„Literacy practices are the general cultural ways of utilising written

language which people draw upon in their lives. In the simplest sense

literacy practices are what people do with literacy.” (Barton/Hamilton

2000: 7)

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Literacy as social practice

• Literacy is best understood as a set of social practices; these can be

inferred from events which are mediated by written texts.

• There are different literacies associated with different domains of life.

• Literacy practices are patterned by social institutions and power

relationships, and some literacies are more dominant, visible and

influential than others.

• Literacy practices are purposeful and embedded in broader social goals

and cultural practices.

• Literacy is historically situated.

• Literacy practices change and new ones are frequently acquired through

processes of informal learning and sense making.

(Barton/Hamilton 2000: 13f.; emphasis in original)

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The “new” in New Literacies Studiese.g.Lankshear/Knobel (2006), Gee (2010)

• “[…] practices that are mediated by the ‘post-typographic’ forms of texts” (Lankshear/Knobel 2006: 25)

• new forms of texts “[…] involve different kinds of social and cultural relations, they flow out of different kinds of priorities and values, and so on.” (ibid.)

• more participatory, more collaborative, more distributed, less published, less author-centric than conventional literacies

• “Digital tools are changing the balance of production and consumption in media […], the balance of participation and spectatorship […], the nature of groups, social formations, and power.” (Gee 2010)

• “age of ‘Pro-Ams’” (ibid.)

Insight:

Information habitus

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„Information habitus“ – the background

What can be done to support individuals and groups who are called “at-risk learners” (“information poor / have-nots”) to find ways towards the potentials of contemporary media and communication?

extension of potentials for action – from the persp learning

‚making mobile‘ to enable people to expand horizons, potentials and affiliations

democratic, equitable outcomes for social, cultural, economic and political participation

Empirical basis: ethnographic study (2002-03) – to be continued in spring 2010

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Information as knowledge as the basic resource for social action and participation

How do we gain access to and how do we obtain information? a need for the widest possible interpretation of “information”

(e.g. entertainment as much as factual texts/contents)

“Information is that which is selected by actors in their life-worlds and transformed by them into knowledge in order to solve a problem.” (Böck 2006:71)

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Information, knowledge, learning

• knowledge as basis for action in the environment (action outwardly) and for inner action (thought)

• learning as expansion of the learner‘s resources and horizons

• communication is at the centre of the chain of information, knowledge, learning

• making knowledge and learning as two sides of one sheet of paper

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Digital media, actors and their environment

• digital media exist and are used in the wider environment of all media, that is, in the whole “bandwidth” of communication, as well as forms of inter-personal communication

• use of media and habits of communication are always part of specific life-worlds

• communication and learning are a resource for dealing with life („Lebensbewältigung“)

• habits of communication and learning are part of ongoing practices and processes of identity construction („Identitätsarbeit“)

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“Information habitus”following Pierre Bourdieu

Includes schemata of recognition of relevant characteristics of one‘s life-world, ascription and evaluation of meaning, and principles of practice.

• A concept to describe and understand forms of access to, and means of obtaining information, and use of information

• Mediates between social actors and the conditions of their life-worlds; social actors and their biographies are at the centre of attention in this concept

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Becoming informed: whose responsibility?

• “Bringschuld“ (literally, an obligation, a ‘debt’, which the source of information owes to the recipient to provide or to ‘bring’ information)

responsibility and obligation to supply necessary information for whoever needs it lie with relevant authority – suppliers are responsible

• “Holschuld“ (literally, an obligation, a ‘debt’, which whoever needs information owes to her/himself to get or ‘fetch‘ that information)

responsibility and obligation to seek and obtain information lie with whoever needs it – recipients are responsible

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Exemplifying the framework: Stefan

• Life-world

– “Schönach”: a small village in a remote area near the Czech border; relation of public and private domain in which much of what is elsewhere private is fully known by all

– a ‘limited’ life: no family of his own (illegitimate child raised in the uncle’s family); reduced material circumstances; small circle of friends; no acknowledged position in the public domain (formal or informal); low-skilled shift-worker in a steelworks to which he has a long commute etc.

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Exemplifying the framework: Stefan

• Identity– ‘traditional’ sense of gender as husband, father and colleague, of

‘generation’; wants and seeks ‘connection’, ‘inclusion’ and recognition; fragility of his sense of self

• Agency – in terms of his social location: narrowly circumscribed job; in

voluntary fire-brigade assigned to low-level unattractive tasks

– in terms of self perception: fully in control of his life; acknowledged by family, closest friends and colleagues of the same or lower rank

• Learning– As somebody who is entirely competent the notion of self as

learning is not acceptable.

– Position as learner is acceptable only in situations of entire novelty.

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Mobile learning for social connection / inclusion / integration of at-risk learners

The social in the centre– Learning as socially relevant action– Pedagogy: connecting with Stefan ‘where he is’ - as already

agentive, to give him recognition – Curricula: relevance and significance in Stefan’s life-world

and in relation to his identity; engaging learners on their own ground – as significant and already experts

All of this implies the transformation of Stefan and his life-world: learning as an unthreatening and normalized part of a fully competent life.

Precondition for designing situations of mobile learrning as a precise understanding of the learners‘ information habitus

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References

• Barton, David/Hamilton, Mary (2000): Literacy practices. In: Barton, David/Hamilton, Mary/Ivanic, Roz (eds.): Situated Literacies. Reading and Writing in Context. London: Routledge, 7-14.

• Böck, Margit (2006): Reducing communicative inequalities: towards a “pedagogy for inclusion”. In: Cammaerts, Bart/Carpentier, Nico (eds.): Reclaiming the media: communication rights and democratic media roles. Bristol: Intellect, 66-85.

• Bourdieu, Pierre (1982): Die feinen Unterschiede. Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

• Bourdieu, Pierre (1993): Sozialer Sinn. Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

• Cope, Bill/Kalantzis, Mary (eds.) (2000) Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge.

• Gee, James P. (2010): A Situated Sociocultural Approach to Literacy and Technology. In: Baker, Elizabeth A. (ed.): The New Literacies: Research and Practice. New York: Guilford Publications. (in print)

• Gee, James P. (1990): Sociolinguistics and Literacies. Ideology in Discourses. London: Taylor & Francis. (3rd edition 2007)

• Heath, Shirely Brice (1983): Ways with Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.• Lankshear, Colin/Knobel, Michele (2006): New Literacies: Everyday Practices &

Classroom Learning. 2nd edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.