The growth of a knowledge-based economy and an information society has meant that literacy increasingly mediates our lives and activities. Literacy has also been a way of critically comprehending the world in order to make it different and better. It is an important tool for increasing the autonomy of powerless individuals and groups by reducing the gap between those with access to information and those denied it.
Building on the original Powerful Literacies first published in 2001, this volume considers the new developments in theory, technology and policy that are having an impact on learning and teaching literacies. It also addresses the current policy context of lifelong learning, active citizenship and social inclusion by showing how learners can be positioned in ways that seek to enhance their control and autonomy.
Using examples from the UK and elsewhere, this book makes a powerful contribution to the analysis of the different, and sometimes ‘ hidden’, ways in which literacies are conceptualised and politicised; and on the generation of ‘liberating‘ educational practice in the light of such work.
The editors are Lyn Tett, Professor of Community Education at the University of Huddersfield and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh; Mary Hamilton Professor of Adult Learning and Literacy at Lancaster University; Jim Crowther Senior Lecturer in Community Education at the University of Edinburgh.
Foreword (David Barton)
1. More Powerful Literacies: An introduction (Mary Hamilton, Lyn Tett and Jim Crowther)
Section one: Theoretical and policy frameworks
2. Contexts for literacy work: New literacy studies, multimodality, and the ‘local and the global’ (Brian Street)
3. More Powerful Literacies: The policy context (Mary Hamilton and Lyn Tett)
Section two: Making power visible
4. Signatures and the lettered world (Jane Mace)
5. Beyond disempowering counts: Mapping a fruitful future for adult literacies (Tannis Atkinson)
6. Power and positioning in writing: Exploring issues of authorship and authority (Amy Burgess)
7. Form-filling, power and the ILP: Tensions and tutor strategies in one adult literacy classroom (Sandra Varey and Karin Tusting)
8. Learning literacy for citizenship and democracy (Jim Crowther and Lyn Tett)
Section three: Resistance and challenges
9. Affective power: Exploring the concept of learning care in the context of adult literacy (Maggie Feeley)
10. Empowerment in educational processes: Feminist re-appropriations (Malini Ghose and Disha Mullick)
11. Transnational migrants in the workplace: Agency and opportunity
12. The Glory and Dismay Football Literacies Programme (GDFLP) (John Player)
13. ESOL learners online: New media as a site of identity negotiation (James Simpson and Richard Gresswell)
14. Using Scots literacy in family literacy work (Alan F.P. Addison)