Re-theorizing Literacy Practices Complex Social and Cultural Contexts

Moving beyond current theories on literacy practices, this edited collection sheds new light on the complexities inherent to the social, cultural, and ideological contexts in which literacy practices are realized. Building on Brian V. Street’s scholarship, contributors discuss literacy as intrinsically social and ideological, and examine how the theorizing of literacy practices has evolved in recognition of the diverse contexts in which written language is used. Breaking new intellectual and theoretical ground, this book brings together leading literacy scholars to re-examine how educational and sociocultural contexts frame and define literacy events and practices. Drawing from the richness of Brian V. Street’s work, this volume offers insights into fractures, tensions, and developments in literacy for scholars, students, and researchers.

1. Introduction Part 1: Literacy as Social – Reflecting Back and Moving Forward2. Fashioning Literacy as Social 3. Literacy as a Social Practice: New Realitiesand New Models 4. Ideologies Languaged into Being: Examining Conversations on Schooled and Religious Literacies Ideologies Part 2: Literacy Practices and Language Ideologies 5. Making of narrative: Understanding young children’s story writing in social contexts6. Ideological battles over Quechua literacy in Perú: From the authority of experts to the innovation of youth Part 3: Literacy Practices Framed by Recognition of Complex Heteroglossic Social Contexts 7. Literacy Teaching and Learning in School as Polyphonic: A Close Examination of a Lesson Focused on Fun Home, the Graphic Memoir and Musical8. Academic literacies as laminated assemblage and embodied semiotic becoming Part 4: Literacy as Praxis in Complex Educational Contexts 9. Literacy research as ideological practice: knowledge, reflexivity and the researcher 10. Testing Practice in a Southern School11. Reading Philosophy Critically: Agentive Classroom Enactment12. Approaches to Academic Literacy Instruction: Classifications, Conflicts and New Directions Part 5: Literacy and Personhood13. Literacy and the Time Being 14. Faith, Culture and Identity: The everyday literacy practices 15. Examining our Blind Spots: Personhood, Literacy, and Power Part 6: The Conversation Continues 16. Conclusion: Literacy as Social and Cultural in the Future Perfect Tense

David Bloome is EHE Distinguished Professor of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University, USA. Maria Lucia Castanheira is Professor of Education at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. Constant Leung is Professor of Educational Linguistics at King’s College London, UK. Jennifer Rowsell is Professor and Canada Research Chair and directs the Centre for Multiliteracies in the Faculty of Education, Brock University, Canada.