Transformative and emancipatory literacy to empower

Abstract

This paper draws on sociological and critical educational frames, particularly Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, in order to contest the dominant model of literacy education that is driven by the premise of a 'knowledge economy'. Instead it foregrounds the political, social, and economic factors that marginalise learners. Data from two projects: an ethnographic study in a Further Education (FE) College in England and a study of community-based literacy programmes in Scotland, are probed to show how literacy classes can offer spaces to challenge symbolic violence and facilitate learners to reclaim identities of success. These changes are illustrated from the learners' views of the contrasts between their experiences of school education and literacy programmes that use transformative and emancipatory approaches. Our research demonstrates how critical education can open up spaces for a more equitable approach based on the co-production of knowledge. It is argued that making changes to policy and practice could inform and shape the literacy curriculum and its pedagogy if adult literacy can disentangle itself from instrumental approaches driven by neoliberal fusion and instead create critical space for contextualised and emancipatory learning.

The automated literacies of e-recruitment and online services

“…While acknowledging the importance of literacy skills for everyday life and work, literacy scholars writing in the vein of the New Literacy Studies have demonstrated the socially situated nature of literacy and the ways in which literacies are learned and enacted within socio-cultural contexts and relationships (Barton andHamilton 1998, Duckworth andTett 2019;Grotl€ uschen et al, 2019a). This might include literacy sponsors and supporters (Brandt 1998, Buddeberg 2019, mediators (Papen 2010, Thompson 2015, Th eriault 2016 and networks and communities of practice (Fingeret 1983, Littlejohn et al 2012.…”

Critical information literacy: Adult learning and community perspectives

“…I think those who are grappling with the ripple effects of the standardization push can learn from the work of the literacy researchers, grounded in community contexts, who have critiqued the impact of literacy frameworks. Their calls to resist their disempowering effects are important for understanding how literacies should reflect and support people's lives rather than dictating to them what they need to know (Duckworth & Tett, 2019;Tett, Hamilton & Crowther, 2012).…”

“…This is an opportunity for further contextualizing and renewing the decolonizing potential of Freirean approaches (Giroux, 1993). Duckworth and Tett's (2019) application of Freirean culture circles is also helpful for identifying the ways creativity can be used by learners to examine their lives and experiences.…”

“…Several cases in Pagowsky & McElroy's (2016) collection describe the use of methods adopted from critical and feminist pedagogy for group learning settings, and may play with standard library instruction methods, including integrating popular culture and other strategies tailored to the learners' interests. Community-based information literacy programs may find useful inspirations from other literacy projects employing such locally grounded activities such as drawing upon learners' knowledge and culture of football (Player, 2013), or using creative expression through art and story writing (Duckworth & Tett, 2019).…”

“…Amidst library critiques that standard instruction is too caught up in technology and basic skill development, critical library studies-informed by Freirean and feminist theorists-have evolved to create space for a more radical questioning of knowledge and power (Accardi, 2013;Pagowsky & McElroy, 2016). In my mind, it is precisely this questioning of power that makes critical information literacy a part of the multiple literacies and new literacies discussion (Duckworth & Tett, 2019).…”