Systematic literature review of literacy and reading in South Africa

Abstract

This chapter reports on a critical literature review of scholarship in literacy and reading in South Africa from 2010 to 2020 that draws on critical discourse analysis. Key issues, trends, and criticisms in the field are discussed. A threestaged methodology has been utilised; which starts with searching educational databases to locate literature focused on Literacy and Reading scholarship. Each article and data is then categorised. The second stage was the development of schemata to interpret the complexity of issues related to research design. The third stage involves the examination of literacy-focused empirical studies and theoretical papers in scholarly journals to reveal trends in the questions that researchers find interesting enough to pursue, the theories they find useful, and the kinds of interactions that capture their attention. The findings demonstrate that Literacy and Reading scholarship has been conducted in many areas of literacy studies, including policy, academic writing, the preparation of literacy teachers, professional development, textbook content, curricular design, assessment, and bilingual education. The review also found evidence of impact and identifies directions for future scholarship.