Beliefs about literacy in a Brazilian community

Pergamon Int. Z Educational Development, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 263--276, 1995

Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved

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B E L I E F S A B O U T L I T E R A C Y IN A B R A Z I L I A N C O M M U N I T Y

IZABEL MAGALHAES

Univers idade de Brasilia, Brazil

Abstract - - The purpose of this paper is to examine beliefs about literacy vis-,~-vis power relations among members of the communi ty of Paranoa, on the outskirts of Brasilia, Brazil. It was found that communi ty members have their own beliefs about literacy, conveying them as metaphors . The communi ty view of literacy depends, further, on the local populat ion 's struggle for survival and on major problems, such as the need to read directions. The paper also discusses the relation between literacy and gender , and the concept of literacy as empowerment , ending with a suggestion to apply principles of Critical Language Awareness to literacy campaigns and communi ty programmes.

1. INTRODUCTION

At the time of the construction of Brasilia, in the 1950s, the Brazilian Federal Government promoted a migration movement in. the country. Many people left their homes, mainly in the North-east and Central Regions, to work in the construction of the new capital. A group of migrant families settled at Paranoa. When the city was completed, the Government of Brasilia attempted to move the families to another area. However, their attempt failed because the local population organised themselves in a movement of civil disobedience.

In the late 1970s, the population of the new village was well over 10,000. At this time, a local residents' association was established by community leaders, with the purpose of seeing to improvements in living conditions in the village. In 1985, the residents' association carried out a census which indicated that about half the population of Paranoa viewed themselves as 'illiterate'. Then the association launched a literacy campaign which was strengthened by the establishment of the C E D E P / C e n t r o de Desenvo l v imen to e Cultura do Paranoa (Centre for Development and Culture in Paranoa). The CEDEP approached the University of Brasilia with a view to having consultants to the adult literacy classes. As a result of these negotiations, Freire's method, which was used in Ceilandia (a satellite town), was taken to Paranoa. In 1990, I was invited to provide language consultancy to the teachers. I began then to visit the classes with a group of university students, z We also took part in a weekly meeting with teachers, learners' repre-

sentatives and the CEDEP leaders. In addition to our participation as linguists, the planning meeting - - the f o r u m - - took advantage of the expertise of pedagogues and health staff from the University of Brasilia.

Alongside consultancy work, in 1991, I started an ethnographic research project at Paranoa. The aims of the project were: first, to examine adult literacy in practice at Paranoa, with an analysis of literacy events and texts produced in class and community contexts; second, to focus on the construction of different identities, beliefs concerning literacy, the values attributed to it in terms of gender ideology, and the different uses of writing. In this paper, I will examine learners' beliefs about literacy in the community. I will also attempt to discuss these beliefs in relation to the issues of gender and power.

2. THE BRAZILIAN LITERACY CONTEXT

Since the 18th century, and especially after the Republic was established in 1889, adult literacy has been oriented by the goals of the economic model in practice. During the Second Republic, for example, adult literacy was considered to be an important factor in the gradual replacement of an economic model based on export of agricultural production by a new model based on emerging industrialisation (Lopes, 1984).

In the early 1960s, there was a growing awareness of social inequality and of adult illiteracy as the product of an unjust society.

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264 IZABEL MAGALH,~ES

Brazil is one of the 10 countries with the highest rate of illiteracy in the world (UNESCO, 1989): 20,378,000 people have never gone to school or have had less than one year of schooling (PNAD, 1988).

During the 1960s, there were intense political discussions which influenced educators such as Freire. Freire's literacy system was aimed at increasing disenfranchised people's political participation by raising their critical awareness of social inequality. Reading and writing for him, far from being seen as merely decoding and encoding words, are considered as parts of an experience of reading and writing the 'world' and its social constraints (Freire and Macedo, 1990).

After the military coup d'Etat in 1964, a national literacy campaign was proposed - - the MOBRAL/Movimento Brasileiro de Alfabetizaf~o (Brazilian Literacy Movement). The MOBRAL associated adult literacy closely with the development model imposed by the Military Dictatorship which ruled the country until 1985. As a product of the development ideology, the MOBRAL put into practice the ideas which define 'functional literacy'. Such ideas, which had been recommended at a previous UNESCO conference, were based on the assumption that by developing certain social skills adult learners would be solving their 'social needs', like the need for 'identification', 'affection', 'association', 'participation' and 'acceptance'. It was believed that by teaching 'basic knowledge, new skills and attitudes', learners would be prepared 'to work together, share responsibility and par- ticipate in ideas' (MOBRAL: Treinamento de Alfabetizador/MOBRAL: Teacher Training, 1972, pp. 3-7). Such words can be seen as linguistic cues to the ideological project of 'functional literacy'. As Street suggests:

ultimate determination of the ('functional literacy') programme lay with financial and commercial interests, with governments acting simply as mediators and as providers of the 'risk capital' in terms of the infrastructure of education and training. The subjects themselves were a form of 'plant' whose effectiveness could be maximised by the employment of new 'educational technology' in the form of 'literacy skills', thereby enabling greater surplus to be extracted from them.

(Street, 1984, p. 184)

The programme of 'literacy skills' embodied in MOBRAL can be related to the emphasis placed on rules and abstract concepts in the

school system, which are often imposed on learners with the aim of training them to work and obedience. Such emphasis has resulted in what scholars such as Soares (1987, p. 1) refer to as the 'Brazilian school failure in teaching reading and writing'. Soares attributes school failure, first, to the gradual achievement of the right to schooling by socioeconomically under- privileged groups, and, second, to the educational authorities' unwillingness to change. Such change would be desirable if schools are to attain the kind of competence required to serve those who have achieved access to it.

Recently, criticism of the construction of hegemonic social relations by the discourse of education has been discussed by Saviani (1983) and Da Silva (1994). Saviani proposes an alternative to Freire's critical pedagogy, based on the separation between educational practice and politics. However, as Da Silva and McLaren (1993, p. 41) note, 'by failing to make a sociological analysis of the con- nections between knowledge, education, and power, Saviani is unable to build a pedagogical alternative which is distinct from existing liberal statements about education.' Saviani's project is further criticised because it does not discuss the transformation of knowledge into school knowledge and the power relations deriving from it (Da Silva and McLaren, 1993, p. 43).

Da Silva's latest work examines educational metanarratives under post-structuralist and post-modernist criticism. Metanarratives are texts produced within educational practice, with a particular body of statements, a particular vocabulary and a particular way of talking about facts and events which relate to a distinct educational theory (Da Silva, 1994, p. 256). Although Da Silva may be right when he points out the failure of metanarratives 'to provide explanations for the multi-faceted and complex social and political processes of the world and of [contemporary] society' (1994, p. 256), given the particular sociohistorical conditions of Brazil, and possibly those of other countries, critical pedagogy still has a role to play in the criticism of the reproduc- tion of hegemonic relations accomplished by education.

In Section 3, I will discuss a conservative view of language based on the teaching of rules and abstract concepts, which has been influential in Brazilian schools, and will then propose an alternative theoretical framework

LITERACY IN A BRAZILIAN COMMUNITY 265

in the study of language which can be of great value to literacy studies.

3. CRITICAL LANGUAGE STUDY

The functional literacy programme adopted in MOBRAL is in keeping with an academic view of language which is legitimised by the Brazilian educational system. Such an academic view of language is concerned with abstract grammatical rules, suiting the educational purpose of strict social control. A society of great social disparities, Brazil has managed to keep social cohesion by a tight control over the population. Such control is exercised with the aid of key institutions like education.

The academic view of language contains three myths: first, that of linguistic homo- geneity. Most Portuguese teaching is still based on the assumption that the Portuguese language is homogeneous. Such an assumption is associated with the idea that learners should be assessed in terms of their command of gram- matically correct Portuguese. A second myth is that form can be separated from content. Emphasis is thus placed on the teaching of grammatical rules with no concern for context of use. A third myth is that written language can be entirely separated from spoken language. A product of such a view is the idea that oral ways of communicating are confused, unintelligible or deficient (Magalh~es, 1993). Written language is, therefore, the only visible modality of language within the educational context.

Fhe educational policy in Portuguese language teaching has been centred, therefore, on the idea of the correct norm, that which can be found in the expository written genre, exemplified in the essay. Although such a policy has been criticised since the early 1980s, it is still prevalent today (see, e.g., Magalhhes and Ricardo, 1981). One of the assumptions here is that most learners' language is deficient and wrong: the purpose of Portuguese teaching can be seen, thus, as replacing the language that learners actually speak for the 'correct language', the only one accepted in pedagogical discourse. The reason for the in- sistence on teaching the correct norm is that most Portuguese teaching in this country is linked to a conservative pedagogy which treats schools as independent from social structures, a neutral space without social struggles (Soares, 1986). As a result of this, it is not uncommon to

find among teachers prejudice against learners' language.

Adult literacy policy in Brazil has also been influenced by the correct Portuguese norm ideology, combined with elements derived from the functional literacy programme (Section 2). Over the last few years, however, two kinds of influence, originating in Linguistics and in Cognitive Psychology (especially the work of Ferreiro, 1991), have been quite significant. I will deal with the first of these influences here. A few linguists have contributed to the literacy debate, addressing educational authorities and teachers, but they show a tendency to reduce the language issue in literacy to a technical linguistic problem, such as matching sounds and letters, or to a question of appropriateness (Lemle, 1988; Cagliari, 1992). Appropriateness defenders, as elsewhere, fall within sociolinguistic perspectives which propose teaching literacy learners the use of appropriate language to a particular social setting. Further, the appropriateness model presupposes that there are shared norms of appropriateness which all writers must conform to, misrepresenting sociolinguistic realities and turning a scientific discipline into a 'resource for hegemonic struggle' (Fairclough, 1992a, p. 52). Note, however, an attempt to introduce a broad anthropological context into policy-making, in Gnerre's caveat:

to reflect on the attitudes, expectations and beliefs which other ethnic groups, social classes and age groups may have about writing, as well as on the attitudes and beliefs about writing shared within one's own tradition of writing, practised by literate minority groups linked to political and economic power.

(Gnerre, 1984, pp. 19-20)

A view of writing which has common concerns with the notion of language as an abstract system of grammatical structures can be found in Goody's 'great divide' theory. Goody has hypothesised the dependence of 'syllogism' and 'other forms of logical procedure' on writing abilities (Goody and Watt, 1962). Such a theory of language seems to be instrumental to the conservative literacy model represented by MOBRAL and to most educational practice in this country.

By legitimising the notion of language as an abstract, and thus neutral, system of grammatical rules, and by relating it to 'great divide' ideas of writing, Brazilian educational practice has been highly elitist. In fact, traditionally

266 IZABEL MAGALH.~ES

only selected groups of the population have gained access to school, the poor being kept out of it as a norm. The socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals who gain access to schooling are usually discouraged by the kind of teaching they are offered, which has no connection to their previous experience and no application to their daily lives (Magalh~es and Ricardo, 1981). This kind of educational practice has been against the democratisation of knowledge.

Contrary to the notion of language as a system of rules, a group of scholars have, over the past two decades, proposed to study language in its relation to the social, historical context. This framework in language study is defined as critical in the sense that it focuses on the deconstruction of discursive-ideological processes in the 'constitution' of reality. Critical Language Study (CLS) owes a great deal to the work of Foucault (1969) and to the French School of Discourse Analysis, par- ticularly to P~cheux (1982, 1988). Foucault (1969, p. 153) has developed the notion of discursive formation as the set of historical rules which define, in time and space, the conditions of the functioning of utterances. P~cheux's writings on discursive-ideological formations have had considerable influence in France and elsewhere.

More recently, in Britain, Fairclough (1992b, p. 63) has suggested that discourse is 'a form of social practice, rather than a purely individual activity or a reflex of situational variables'. Such a notion of language has two useful implications for literacy studies. The first is the implication that 'discourse is a mode of social action' and a 'mode of representation'. The second is the implication that ' there is a dialectical relationship between discourse and social structure, there being more generally such a relationship between social practice and social structure: the latter is both a condition for, and an effect of, the former'. Fairclough, therefore, adds to Foucault 's and P6cheux's notions of discourse the idea that speech and writing practices are not only determined by social structure, but can also contribute to change in social structure.

A crucial concept to the discussion of unequal power relations underlying uses of writing in Brazilian society is that of ideology, Thompson (1984, p. 130) suggests that ideology plays an important part in the social

construction of meaning. Proposing that language is the main site of ideology, Thompson points out three ways by which ideology works. First, ideology contributes to sustaining unequal power relations to the extent that they are presented as legitimate. Second, ideology can deny or conceal power relations. Third, ideology can work by reification when it represents a transitory state as permanent or natural (cf. Magalhaes, forthcoming).

To sum up, Critical Language Study has a common perspective with work produced in literacy research, especially the Freirean concern with: the critique of oppression; the development of critical awareness; and change in social structure. As Freire notes:

Reflection upon situationality is reflection about the very condition of existence: critical thinking through which men discover each other to be 'in a situation'. Only as this situation ceases to present itself as a dense, enveloping reality or a tormenting blind alley, and men come to perceive it as an objective-problematic situation -- only then can commitment exist. Men emerge from their submersion and acquire the ability to intervene in reality as it is unveiled. Intervention in reality -- historical awareness i t s e l f - thus represents a step forward from emergence, and results from the conscientization of the situation. Conscientization is the deepening of the attitude of awareness characteristic of all emergence.

(Freire, 1972, p. 81)

The analysis which follows, in Sections 4, 5 and 6, has been oriented by the theoretical discussion I have presented here.

4. BELIEFS ABOUT LITERACY AT P A R A N O A

In a developing country like Brazil, there is a widespread belief that literacy will bring about development. Such a belief is probably derived from UNESCO recommendations in the 1950s and government programmes which follow closely the interest of multinational com- panies in having an efficient, skilled workforce (cf. Section 2). Government policies have thus been planned with the purpose of 'eradicating illiteracy'. I will focus here on community beliefs about literacy in relation to this ideology of development and to the power and gender relations in the community. I use a notion of power which can be seen not only in class relations but also in gender, generation or community relations.

Associating literacy with development certainly falls within what Street (1984) calls


the 'ideological model' of literacy. There are, however, other ways of talking about literacy. These different views of literacy can be seen as metaphors, semantic/interpretive devices which change one meaning (A) into another meaning (B), for example viewing illiteracy as 'blind- ness'. Considering illiteracy as a 'sickness' or a 'handicap' can have different implications in terms of the course of action to solve what is seen as a 'problem'. A 'sickness' demands treatment, while a 'handicap' calls for rehabilitation. Illiteracy can also be viewed as 'ignorance', 'incapacity', 'oppression', 'dep- rivation' or 'deviance'. Each of these views describes the so-called 'illiterate' in a different way (Barton, 1994, p. 13).

Twenty men and thirteen women were inter- viewed. The men usually work as gardeners in well-off houses by the Paranoa Lake in Brasilia. They can also work as labourers in civil construction, as carpenters or as electri- cians. The women have occupations related to the home. Some are housewives, others are maids or have low-paid jobs, making coffee in the civil service. In this paper, I will draw on interviews with four men and four women, but I am examining the other interviews for use in future work. I will present briefly the learners who are quoted in the examples.

Joaquim, 21, from Juazeiro/Bahia (North- east), works as a bodyguard. He has been living in the community for 4 years. He dropped out of mainstream schooling after the first grade. He has been attending adult literacy classes for 3 months. Raimundo, 31, from Corel/Ceara (North-east), works as a carpenter. He has been living in the community for 3 weeks. He has had no mainstream schooling. He has been attending adult literacy classes for 2 weeks. Manuel, 26, from Goianesia/Goiaz (Centre-west), works as a labourer. He has been living in the community for 9 years. He has been attending adult literacy classes for 5 months. Sebastido, 28, from S~o Benedito/Cear~i (North-east), works as an electrician, but he is out of work. He has been living in the community for 6 years. He has had no mainstream schooling. He has been attending adult literacy classes for 3 years.

Ana, 38, from Bom Jesus/Piaui (North-east), is a housewife. She has been living in the community for 13 years. She has had no mainstream schooling. She has been attending adult literacy classes for one year. Aparecida, 20, from Sho

Luiz/Maranhao (North), works as a maid. She has been living in the community for 4 years. She has been attending adult literacy classes for 7 months. Esmeralda, 30, from Barras/Bahia (North-east), also works as a maid. She has been living in the community for 13 years. She went to a mainstream school when she was a child. She has been attending adult literacy classes for 3 years. Maria, 47, from Coelho Neto/Maranh~o (North), makes coffee at the Health Office in Brasilia. She has been living in the community for 12 years. She dropped out of mainstream schooling after completing the fifth grade. When compared to the other adult learners, some of whom are quiet, she is a very fluent speaker.

Community members at Paranoa share their own metaphors for literacy and illiteracy. These are ideas which have been circulating in the community, derived partly from the educational system, but also from government policies concerned with development. Some of them can also have a religious origin, since reading sacred texts does depend on literacy. In fact, some local groups have been organised under the influence of the Catholic Church. Others are based on 'common-sense' notions associated, for example, with the functioning of the memory. Looking at literacy in a positive way can ultimately be traced to the CEDEP's concern for creating in the Paranoa population a civic awareness. I will present these different metaphors in comments by learners at the community adult literacy project. 3

(1) Joaquirn: Pra resolver qualquer problema ce tern qui sabe ler (+) pra viajar (+) pra trabalhar (+) resolver negocio ne se a pessoa ce me da urn papel desse ai sern ler eu nurn posso resolver ele ne? Assinar algurna coisa um documento tudo precisa da leitura. Especialrnente no emprego ne? Pra arrumar urn emprego melhor tern que te urn grau rnais alto (+) que nem agora mesmo era pra ta trabalhando se eu tivesse estudo. Era cornputador tern dessas coisas porque eu trabalho curn pessoal que la e um orgao que so tern isso sabe cornputador essas coisas. In order to solve any problem you need reading (+) to travel (+) to work (+) to deal in business, right? If someone, you give me a piece of paper like this, I can't do anything with it without reading it, right? To sign anything, a document, everything requires reading. Especially at work, right? In order to get a better job, a higher level of schooling is necessary like now, if I could read and write I would be working with a computer. There are such things because I work with people, it's an agency which has only this, you know, computers, such things.

(Paranoa, Interview 2, 1992)

268 I Z A B E L M A G A L H A E S

Joaquim views literacy as 'problem-solving', a metaphor which is probably derived from the educational system. Such a view can be con- nected with Goody's idea that logical reasoning depends on writing (see Section 2). However, Joaquim does not seem to be concerned with logic, but rather with the practical side of life in a community in which command of written Portuguese is highly valued. Thus, there is a 'common-sense' idea in the community that literacy is a key factor in improving one's social position, for example in getting a white- collar job.

Some of the learners view literacy in terms of facilitating their day-to-day struggle with poverty. Joaquim, for example, points out how writing is important to get a job in which he would have the opportunity of using computers at work. Certainly, in a social context where the migrant population's work opportunities are restricted to manual work, reading and writing are factors which can improve their chances of having access to white-collar jobs. In the long run, this would mean at the very least increasing their work opportunities.

Another related issue is discussed by Raimundo when he suggests that reading can change the nature of one's social experience, increasing one's confidence in interactions with literate people. In job interviews, for instance, reading and writing can place these people in a position in which they can refer to job advertisements in newspapers, thus improving their chances of success.

(2) Raimundo: • . . eu acho que a pessoa que nao sabe ler ele e timido ne (+) ai a pessoa que sabe ler, mesmo que ele seja timido mais assim se uma pessoa comeca conversar corn ele (+) ele tem um dialogo de conversar (+) s e a pessoa nao sabe ele nao tern como conversar (+) porque ele nao conhece, m pessoa que nao sabe ler e escrever practicamente ela e cega (+) porque (+) porque ele vive (+) rive dependente das outras pessoas ne. • . . I think that the person that can' t read he 's shy, right? (+ ) Then a person that can read, even if he ' s shy, but another person begins to talk to him (+) he can have a dialogue with this person (+ ) if a person can' t read he has no way of talking (+ ) because he doesn ' t know. A person that can ' t read and write he ' s practically blind (+ ) because (+ ) because he lives (+ ) lives depending on other people, right?


Raimundo's metaphor for illiteracy is 'blind- ness', meaning that illiterate people have to depend on others to explain to them meanings which are conveyed in writing. This would

extend to different situations in the community, such as shopping, taking the bus, visiting the doctor. We can infer from Raimundo's observations that in order for these people to speak from a position in which they can take a stand and argue for their rights, they need reading and writing.

(3) Ana: A V E M A R I A pra tudo. Pra tudo realmente e pra tudo sabe? E (+) sei la e pra tudo no mundo. Acho que saber ler acho qui e a coisa mais importante da vida da gente. (+) E horrivel a gente num saber ler. Chegar num lugar os outro ficar humilhando a gente assim. A gente num pode dizer nada ne. Acho chato. (+) Era uma das coisa da minha vida que eu queria (+) saber• So qu'eu ja to numa idade que num posso mais aprender muito ne. 'Hail Mary ' , for everything (Reading is necessary for everything)• For everything really, it 's for everything, you know? (+) I don ' t know, it 's for everything in the world• I think that reading is the most important thing in our lives• (+ ) It 's awful for us not to be able to read, to arrive at a place and to be humiliated by other people• We can' t say anything, right? I don ' t like it• (+ ) This is one thing in life that I 'd like (+ ) to know. But I 've reached an age in which I can' t learn much right?


Ana views literacy as 'the most important thing in their lives', and she reports that she has felt humiliated by being unable to read, and further that she has taken humiliation in silence: a gente num pode dizer nada ne (we can't say anything, right?). It might be the case that she is silent because she feels unable to take a stand and argue back, much in the way Raimundo suggests when he talks about an illiterate person's lack of confidence and difficulty to engage into a 'dialogue'. Being a woman probably adds to Ana's difficulties, since in this society literacy has been very much associated with men (see Section 5).

Aparecida refers to the positive value associated with literacy in the community, using the bicho bruto (untamed animal) metaphor to refer to illiterate people.

(4) Aparecida: • . . a gente sabe ler escrever, voce pode ir em qualquer lugar, ce pode (+) entrar em qualquer lugar, e muito bem recebido e voce num sabe ler escrever e memo que assim (+) nem sei dizer, memo que assim um bichinho um bicho bruto (+) e ruim demais assim (+) ai a pessoa sabendo ler e escrever e otimo, as coisa facilita muito pra voce. • . . if we can read and write you can go anywhere, you can (+) go into any place, you ' re very welcome, and if you can ' t read and write, it 's the same as, let 's say (+ ) I don ' t know how to put it, it 's the same as being a little animal, an un tamed animal (+ ) it 's so

LITERACY IN A B R A Z I L I A N COMMUNITY 269

bad (+) then if a person can read and write, it's fine (+) things are so much easier for you.


The metaphor of the 'untamed animal' evokes again Goody's theory of the 'great divide' and the connection of literacy to cognitive achievement. If the so-called 'illiterates' view themselves as 'untamed animals', there will be justification for arguments in favour of 'the domestication of the savage mind', which is, in fact, the title of one of Goody's books (1977). Aparecida's belief about literacy probably has its origin in institutions like education, the Catholic Church or other religious institutions. Such assumptions, which circulate in the community, seem to value the literate and devalue those who have had no access to literacy.

The idea that literacy is related to cognitive achievement, or what Street (1984) calls the 'autonomous model', has thus been granted considerable weight in the community. In such a model, those very people who have been denied access to literacy are to blame for it. Like the 'handicap' metaphor which legitimises the need for the rehabilitation of the illiterate, illiteracy can also be viewed as a 'memory problem'.

(5) Esmeralda: . . . a gente le acredito mais a gente tem aquela oportunidade ne (+) mas as meninas tern muita paciencia com a gente sabe (+) elas entende (+) explica mesmo (+) alguma coisa a gente nao pega porque voce sabe ne (+) a cabeca e muito (+) as vezes eu falo assim 'Ai meu Deus. t' Eu acho que quando eu era crianca eu acho que eu nao estudei o bastante (+) entao eu fu i f icando velha e a memoria fo i fechando (+) e agora eu acho que ta fechada rnesmo (+) mais ai eu estudando eu to sentindo que ta melhorando. • . . if we read I believe we have more opportunities, right? (+) But the girls (the teachers) are very patient with us, you know (+) they understand (+) they explain well (+) something we don't catch, it's because, you know (+ ) our mind is very (+) sometimes I say something like this, 'Oh my God! ' I think that when I was a child, I think that I didn' t study enough (+) then I got old and my memory gradually closed up (+) and now I think it's definitely closed up (+) but then as I 'm studying, I feel that it's getting better.


Esmeralda seems to blame herself for not having remained in school when she was a child. She feels that as she got older her memory did not function as well as when she was a child. Using the 'closed-up memory' metaphor, she attributes to it a 'problem' which impairs learning. Such an idea may have its

origin in traditional medical practices in the community, which classify and treat diseases attributed to unnatural causes. These practices exist alongside orthodox medicine (Magalh~es, 1991a).

Beliefs about literacy are ultimately products of social practices which view literacy in certain ways (Street, 1984). As such, they can be considered as cues to gender relations in the community. In Section 5, I will look at literacy in the context of gender relations.

5. LITERACY AND GENDER

According to work cited by Araujo (1993, p. 194), in colonial Brazil, women were allowed to learn writing and numeracy so that they could keep home records of food, servants' wages, prices, expenses and recipes. Literacy in Brazil is thus part of social practices in which the home is the natural place for women. In a social context of hegemonic gender relations, literacy can contribute to construe 'common- sense' assumptions or representations of different roles for men and women. Such images are seen as 'gender ideologies'. A definition of 'gender ideology' is proposed by Graddol and Swann:

In the case of gender ideologies, it is assumed that dominant images of feminity and masculinity, which encourage both women and men to seek gratification by conforming to established gender norms, lead ultimately to women's oppression. Ideology is thus put forward as a mechanism to explain how women become complicit in their own oppression•

(Graddol and Swann, 1989, p. 141)

As part of these social practices, literacy at Paranoa is associated with men and women in different ways. In public situations, literacy is often associated with men, whereas, in private situations, it is associated with women. Let us take the case of the work situation. Men like Joaquim (example 1) refer to literacy in association with the computer at the work place. He certainly finds that literacy can open up opportunities and enable him to get what he views as a 'better job'. In fact, there are other factors to be considered at the work place; one should not be led into thinking that literacy would solve all Joaquim's problems in relation to work. However, it is significant that among adult learners at Paranoa, it is a man that views literacy as opening up a concrete opportunity of working with a computer, and thus of being promoted at work.


Women also refer to literacy as a 'need' to 'get ahead' at the work place, but such a need is often limited to signing their names, as in mna' s case.

(6) Ana: A unica coisa que eu acho rnais ruim e quando eu you assinar assim urn docuMENto ne ai eu acho ruirn, acho chato (+) rico assirn preocupada sabe porque eu queria saber rnesmo assirn ne (+) entao ai sirn so o que me preocupa mais (+) por causa qu' eu nao sei (+). The only thing that I find the worst is when I'm going to sign a DOcument, right? Then it's bad, I don't like it (+) I get concerned, you know, because I'd like to know it well, right? (+) Then it's this yes the only thing which concerns me most (+) because I don't know it (+).


Although Ana thinks that 'literacy is the most important thing in life' (example 3), she would value most knowing how to sign her name. Be- ing usually restricted to interactions within the home situation, she would, however, need to sign documents, for example rent contracts.

The six interviews with Paranoa women show that women's literacy practices are constructed within the home situation. Some women do work outside their homes, but their occupations are mostly centred around the home. Take Maria's case, for example. Maria used to be a cook at the home of a high-ranking army officer in the North-east. Over the past few years, she has worked as a coffee-lady at the Health Office in Brasilia. Other women have similar occupations, working as maids, cleaners, or doing other people's washing in launderettes.

Women seem to understand the relevance of literacy in the sense that it can open up opportunities. Ana seems to be suggesting that literacy makes a big difference in terms of civil rights: it would mean not to be seen as different in interactions with literate people in the community. On the other hand, Aparecida is definite about what literacy can do for people: it can stop others from classifying them as 'untamed animals'.

One should bear in mind, however, that these women come from traditional communities in which literacy is a male privilege. Some of them were kept away from literacy by family demands, such as child-bearing, or by their fathers' or husbands' authority. In this traditional social context, it is often the male children who have the opportunity of learning reading, writing and numeracy, the

role of women being thought of in connection with marriage and children. It is not surprising, therefore, that Raimundo associates literacy with men as his use of ele (he) suggests:

(7) Raimundo: . . . eu hum sei let bern nero escrever (+) mas eu mesmo vejo as pessoas que tem dificuldade de fala porque nao tern a leitura nurn le (+) e analfabeto e ele tern dificuldade de fala. Ele ja (+) saiu (inint.) de la e chega aqui continua o mesmo porque nurn procurou algum colegio porque colegio aqui tern muito. . . . I can't read or write well (+) but I've myself seen people who find it difficult to speak because they haven't got reading (he) can't read (+) he's illiterate, and he's got speech difficulties. He's (+) left (inint.) there (his place of origin), and he's arrived here, but he continues the same because he hasn't looked for a school because there are many schools here.


Raimundo discusses the relation between oral and written language, connecting 'speech problems' with those who cannot read and write. He also assumes that literacy is tied up in schooling. Further, he seems to be suggesting that literacy would solve these 'problems'. I would like to focus, however, on Raimundo's use of masculine forms. According to Cunha and Cintra (1985, p. 182), 'the masculine is the non-marked term; the feminine is the marked term'. Cunha and Cintra add that all the noun forms which are preceded by the article o (the) and which end in the suffix -o (p. 184) are to be classified as masculine. Such Portuguese language features as ele (he), third person masculine subject pronoun, the masculine suffix-o, in the adjective analfabeto (illiterate) and in the pronoun mesmo (same), and the masculine definite article o (the) in o mesmo (the same), following as pessoas (people), are significant in that they show the people Raimundo naturally associates with literacy (see example 2). These features thus point to a naturalised idea of women's exclusion from the group of people elected to be literate.

This kind of gender ideology can explain why women, in this social context, do not seem to have gained as much from literacy as men, especially in relation to work. On the one hand, their comments, in the interviews and in the weekly meetings at the CEDEP adult literacy classes, indicate that the values they attribute to literacy are linked to a general improvement in the quality of their lives. For example, they seem to be aware that literacy can be a tool against discrimination, as Aparecida and Ana point out (examples 3


and 4). On the other hand, except for Maria who sees a relation between literacy and the possibility of promotion at the Health Office, women do not associate reading and writing with concrete improvement at the work place. Certainly, this kind of view is the product of historical social practices in which women have been excluded from literacy as well as from work opportunities. In a previous study, I analysed suggestions written by women and addressed to the National Constitution Assem- bly in 1986-1987 (Magalhfies, 1991b). These texts present clear indications that there is discrimination against women at the work place. It is worthy of mention here the way that some women view other women at the work place. Esmeralda, for example, refers to the teachers at the literacy classes as 'the girls' (example 5). The use of such a term which degrades women, since professionals are not usually associated with the word 'girls', is another instance of gender ideology. Raimundo's use of masculine forms in relation to literacy ought to be seen, therefore, not merely as neutral linguistic labels but as representations, ideological uses of language which operate within institutional and societal contexts (Fairclough, 1992c). In these contexts, language has interacted with authoritarian modes of behaviour. Such interaction has been considerably effective in keeping women in powerless positions.

In Section 6, I will examine briefly a few learners' comments on the issue of power in the community.

6. LITERACY AS EMPOWERMENT

Let us now look at how power is handled at the CEDEP literacy project. I propose to do this by examining comments by Aparecida, Manuel, Joaquim and Sebastiao. Such comments were made in response to the question whether the learners had heard about CEDEP.

(8) Aparec ida: • . . eu comece i fazer urn curso ali coa (+) Laura m a n d o u que a gente fosse mas ai eu nao terminei nao p o r q u e tinha que escrever urn cado de coisa e eu nao sabia ain, alias, eu nao sei ainda, escrever direi t inho ne, ai eu nao f i z o curso todo . . .

• . . I began to do a course there with (+) Laura who told us to do it, but then I didn't finish it because I had to write a lot of things, and I didn't know it then, by the way I still can't write well, then I didn't do the whole c o u r s e . . .


(9) Manue l : O/a (+) o signif icado desse curso ai vai, assim a gente pensa mais no es tudo he, a genre, depois q u e m rive la dentro ai a genre ve p o r q u e agora a genre ta no me io ne n u m a crise meia f raca ne, h u m tern cond icao assim de sabe a coisa la dentro ne, p o r q u e ai Laura ta p o t dentro nos, o resto, nao. Look (+) the meaning of this course then is, well we have to think about studying, right? Later we, those who are inside, we'll see because now we're in the middle of a crisis, things are slow, right? There's no way for us, well, to know what's happening inside, right? Because then Laura knows what's happening we, the remainder, don't.


(10) Joaqu im: 0 pessoa l daqu i trabalha cure o pessoa l de la e o pessoal de la trabalha cum o pessoal daqui , que nem a Laura mesmo . Ela e do C E D E P t a m b e m he. Ela ]a fa lava no curso cure a genre, qua lquer coisa que precisa agente chega pra ela, ela vai la f a z a forca e ve he? People here work with people there, and people there work with people here, just like Laura. She's also part of CEDEP, right? She used to tell us in the course, anything we need we go to her, and she helps us, right?


(11) Sebasti~o: E u acho que (+) a gente deveria (+) fazer tipo assim u m a prova (+) pra ve t aquela pessoa que passasse na p r o v a ( + ) t inha que tirar da sala nao e (+) p o t exemplo se dez passasse e c inco (+) nao sei nero quanto tern na nossa sala (+) e cinco nao passasse, entao aquela turma deveria ir pra outra sala ne (+) p o r q u e ai f ica a trapalhando os outro, p o t exemplo , p o r q u e ta sabendo mais . . . quern nao passou m u d a pra outra sala mais f raca ( + ) eu acho que deveria ser assim. I think that (+) we should (+) have well sort of a test (+) to see, anybody who passed the test (+) would have to be moved to another class, right? (+) For example, if ten passed and five (+) I don't even know how many are in our class (+) and five didn't pass, then that group should go to another class, right? (+) Because then they can disturb the others, for example because they know more . . . those who didn't pass should move to another, weaker class (+) I think it should be like this.


Such comments by the learners suggest that there are systematically unequal relations of power between the community leadership and the members of the community, and between the literate and the non-literate members. Such power relations can be seen in the comments by Aparecida, Manuel and Joaquim. According to these comments, Laura, one of the CEDEP leaders and present co-ordinator, tells people in the community to engage in certain actions, for example, to do a course. Furthermore, Laura is reported to be generally receptive to community members' needs as her position would require.


Referring to Australian aboriginal experience from oral to literate culture, Eggington (1992, pp. 93-94) notes that 'only the elders can speak for the people' . Eggington adds:

Aboriginal people want the power, to control their own destiny. They recognize that one way to achieve that power is to become literate, to write books and other documents . . . aboriginal leaders want their children to gain access to a 'secret' language which, when mastered, offers power.

The community literacy project at Paranoa faces a contradiction. Their goal of 'constructing citizens' seems to indicate their awareness of the power that literacy can offer the community in negotiations with the authorities of Brasilia. They have thus engaged in such literacy events 4 as writing minutes and referring to them in meetings, discussing the terms of letters addressed to the authorities, planning and producing a local newsletter which can circulate ideas and express members ' views on themes of interest to the community. However , the learners' comments presented here, as well as comments by teachers at the planning meetings, seem to indicate that there is still a wide gap between the C E D E P leadership and the community. For instance, a few learners have never heard of CEDEP, while some others do not appear to understand the role of C E D E P in the community. The fact that they often refer to Laura, the present co-ordinator, suggests that her authority is recognised, but given the C E D E P goal of 'constructing citizens', one would expect other leaders would find space to be legitimised as well.

In fact, this has not happened so far, first, because of the charismatic nature of Laura's leadership. She has been associated with the community's historical struggles with the authorities of Brasilia, with demonstrations held at Pra~a do Buriti (Buriti Square), in front of the Governor 's Palace in Brasilia, and even with a hunger strike by some community members. Some of these struggles were related to the decision by the community to reject the Government ' s order that they move to another area. The fact that Paranoa is situated next to Lago Norte, a prestigious suburb by the Paranoa Lake, and to the houses of the rich at the Setor de Mans6es Norte, where former President of Brazil, Fernando Collor de Mello, owns a luxurious house - - the nationally known Casa da Dinda - - has certainly put pressure on the Government of Brasilia to move the

poor members of the Paranoa community to a commercially less valued area.

Another reason, possibly a consequence of the first one, is the lack of political experience and unawareness, in some of the teachers and learners, of the hidden agenda/power which literacy can offer. In relation to this, it is significant to consider that the present co-ordinator is a woman whose leadership has been legitimised in an election for the C E D E P top post. The other teachers, however, are mostly women who have not been as successful as Laura in challenging the predominant unequal gender relations in the community. In addition, they have not all taken part in the community's historical struggles with the authorities of Brasilia, some of them having joined the literacy project only recently. On the other hand, some of them have not been granted the authority which schooling can offer to written Portuguese users. Only Laura and one other woman have been to the Curso Normal , a formal teacher training course at secondary school level. The other teachers are community members, with a few years of schooling, who have been trained in short courses provided by the University of Brasilia staff in collaboration with CEDEP.

The co-ordinator has, therefore, been granted considerable power, and, as a result of this, she holds the position associated with having key information and knowledge which the learners, in Manuel's words - - ' the remainder ' - - do not have. The way Manuel views the learners can show how their identity is constructed: the lack of specification of their different stories, their presentation as an unspecified group of people with no names, whose voices do not really count in major political decisions, are all brought into discussion by the nominalisation o resto/the remainder.

On the other hand, Sebastiho proposes a test to group the learners according to their achievement. He justifies his suggestion ex- plaining that it is not a good idea to have the poor learners and fast learners together in the same class because they can slow down each other 's development. There already exist three different classes based on learner assessment: beginners, intermediate and advanced. What Sebasti~o proposes is thus a further refinement in learner classification: por exemplo, se dez passasse e cinco . . . e cinco nao passasse ent~o aquela turma deveria ir pra outra sala n ( ( + ) porque ai fica atrapalhando os outro/for


example, if ten passed and five . . . and five didn't pass then the group that passed should go to another class, right? (+) Because then they can disturb the others. This kind of suggestion seems to be based on a community 'common- sense' notion that literate members are superior to non-literate members. Such 'common-sense' notion is ultimately a product of the values attributed to literacy in the wider society. The way these values are seen by Sebasti~o in the class context is in terms of the group that ta sabendo mais/knows more and the group that ta sabendo menos/knows less or the mais fraca/weaker class. The grammatical notion of comparative, in this case, reconstructs the idea that literacy is bound up with power in social relations. As Foucault (1980, p. 141) notes: "It seems to me that power is 'always already there', that one is never 'outside' it, that there are no 'margins' for those who break with the system to gambol in."

There are then, as Sebastifio suggests, power relations within the group of learners themselves. This kind of 'difference', as Kress (1985) names it, would have to be discussed at the forum - - the planning meeting - - as a way of dealing positively with this issue.

I will now consider the idea of literacy as 'empowerment ' , which underlies the goal of 'citizen construction'. Freire's critical pedagogy is no doubt at the very heart of this discussion. It is Freire's idea that literacy should not be seen merely as decoding and encoding the word, but mainly as an effective tool for raising learners' critical awareness of social inequality and by doing so for increasing their political participation. Freire advocates an emancipatory view of literacy, in which learners can experience reading and writing the 'world' (Freire, 1972; Freire and Macedo, 1990).

Using literacy in a resistance movement to the conservative/authoritarian discourse of the Government can mean ultimately to question the meanings regularly attributed to written language, and especially the roles of 'writer' and 'reader'. Instead of engaging in reading Government-produced texts, such as letters and documents, the focus in the community literacy practices is rather on writing letters to the authorities, writing posters and newsletters. Thus, instead of being placed in the position of readers, some community members have been placed in the position of writers. In such a

position, they can express their needs and concerns, and hopefully they can be heard.

However, literacy cannot be considered a solution to all the community's problems. Lit- eracy itself will not make villagers wealthier or more capable than they are at present. The way literacy can prove beneficial to the community is to view it as 'an enabling factor' which will work, provided that it can be integrated into other existing social practices (Street, 1984). As I have pointed out in this paper (cf. Sections 1 and 5), the community leadership together with a group of local people have been extremely resourceful in terms of getting themselves organised in a variety of groups, such as the women's and young people's groups, and centres, such as the CEDEP, but also in terms of showing their needs to the authorities of Brasilia and challenging them. In this social context, local people will understand the benefits literacy can bring to them not because the Government has launched a literacy campaign, but rather because they can see the result of their community-oriented textual acts. These consist of letters, posters, newsletters, meeting minutes, seminars, all of them centred around community goals.

What I call community-oriented textual acts can be characterised as writing with a purpose closely related to community needs and goals. They are also seen as part of political awareness, or 'conscientisation', in Freire's terms, that social change can be achieved by making demands from those in power, and by questioning one's own identity as well as that of others (Freire, 1972). Textual acts at Paranoa can further be understood as bringing about change within selected genres, like letters and minutes, as I have suggested, in relation to the roles of writer and reader (Fairclough, 1992). Such textual acts and their results indicate that literacy is a social practice which has been successfully integrated into other social practices in the community.

It is only understandable then why the CEDEP has recently engaged in expanding the community literacy project, as a way of involving the community as a whole in their literacy politics, in the construction of citizens and in the sharing of literacy experiences. It is true that the concept of literacy politics can be found in other contexts. For example, in systematically favouring the interests and


concerns of dominant groups in Brazilian society, the school system is certainly practising a kind of literacy politics (cf. Section 2). I would, however, reserve the term to refer to literacy (discursive) practices which have developed new ways of relating to non-discursive practices. These new relations result from the actors' attempt to i n t e r v e n e in social reality by their textual acts - - letter-writing would be one case - - and critical awareness of the role that literacy can play in major changes which are taking place in the community.

C O N C L U S I O N

I would like to end this paper by suggesting that community and educational authorities in Brasilia should adopt principles developed in Cri t i ca l L a n g u a g e A w a r e n e s s and summarised by Fairclough:

This model incorporates the important principle that critical language awareness should be built from the existing language capabilities and experience of the learner. The experience of the learner can, with the help of the teacher, be made explicit and systematic as a body of knowledge which can be used for discussion and reflection, so that social causes for experiences (e.g. of constraint) can be explored. At the same time, links should constantly be made between work on the development of language awareness and the language practice of the learner• This practice must be 'purposeful'. That is, it must be tied in to the learner's real wishes and needs to communicate with specific real people, because this is the only way for the learner to experience authentically the risks and potential benefits of particular decisions.

(Fairclough, 1992c, p. 16)

Therefore, learners' own knowledge and beliefs about literacy should be taken into consid- eration in literacy campaigns or in community literacy classes, such as the ones provided by CEDEP. For one thing, these beliefs can contribute to sustaining power relations among the actors involved. Adult learners who view literacy as 'the main thing in life' will often find a great distance between their literate leaders and themselves. Such a distance is determined by a polarised relationship, on the one hand, between the community leaders and the learners and, on the other, between other literate members of the community and those who have had no access to literacy. Another polarised relationship could be seen between men and women, since - - as I have suggested in Section 5 - - men have gained more from literacy than women. It is important, thus,

to discuss learners' beliefs about literacy and the power relations which are constructed by them. As part of this discussion, the community literacy project would benefit from a reflection on power in the C E D E P relationship with the community. Laura, the present C E D E P co-ordinator, has offered a comment which I view as a starting point:

(12) Laura: • . . urna das coisas que rico mais feliz e realmente ver estas pessoas sendo assim promovidas, enquanto pessoas, ne? Essas pessoas que estao aqui hoje sao pessoas que realmente participam, ne? Que de repente comecam a dizer o que querem e o que pensam, ne? Entao isso para mira e de urea relevancia muito grande, porque e pra isso que nos estamos aqui, para formar cidadaos. E esses cidadaos que estao aqui, que ja estao comecando ja corn urna outra visao, corn uma outra visao de rnundo, que estao, vamos dizer assim, corn outras perspectivas de vida, pra m i m e um grande feito.

• . . one of the things that really makes me happy is to see these people being promoted as people, right? You see, these people who are here today are people who really get involved. Now they've begun to say what they want and what they think• This then has for me a very great relevance because it's for this that we are here, to construct citizens. And these citizens who are here, who are already beginning, already with another view, with another world view, who are, let's put it this way, with other prospects of life, this is for me a great achievement.

(Paranoa, Interview on video, 1991)

Furthermore, the C E D E P proposal of literacy as integrating a larger project of citizenship construction can advance by acknowledging learners' beliefs. This could be considered a first step towards their participation as actors in the community's literacy practices. The learners' 'common-sense ' ideas about literacy, which I have analysed in terms of metaphors, seem generally to picture literacy as an ideal achievement. A way of dealing with them is to disentangle literacy from its association with development, progress, cognitive skills and gendered assumptions. Literacy does not make people more developed than they were before acquiring it. However, it can contribute to constructing their identities - - subsumed by the C E D E P co-ordinator as their 'world views' - - in certain ways, and it certainly can 'place' those who master it in writing roles from which they can act with a view to improving their lives. In such roles, men and women can make demands from the authorities and exercise their right to the written word, a right which understandably is highly valued in a society in which writing is considered a privilege.


NOTES

1. I would like to thank Norman Fairclough, David Bar- ton, Simon Gieve, all from Lancaster University, and referees of the International Journal of Educational Development, for reading earlier drafts of this paper.

2. The students who have taken part in this project are: Janaina Theodoro, Guilherme Rios, James Dias and Paulo Valladfio. In 1991-1992, Eugenio Batista, a colleague at the Department of Linguistics, Classical and Vernacular Languages, was also a member of the research/consultaney team.

3. The following transcription conventions were adopted: (+) = a pause; (inint./unint.) = unintelligible; capital letters = emphasis. All the villagers' names have been replaced.

4. A literacy event is a discursive event centred around an instance of writing. In a literacy event, writing is a constitutive part of a sociocultural routine governed by norms which prescribe its participants, the roles of reader and/or writer, the uses and values attributed to reading and writing. A literacy event is usually organised with a goal, having a beginning and an end. Ideally, it would be useful to think of such events as embedded in changing sociocultural practices, in such a way that the participants, the roles of reader and writer, and the values attributed to literacy would be negotiated (adapted from Heath, 1983, p. 386).

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Documents

Beliefs about literacy in a Brazilian community