Literacy Studies in Education

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Literacy Studies in Education:

Disciplined Developments in a Post-

Disciplinary Age

Colin LankshearPublished in M. Peters (1999).After the Disciplines.

Greenwood Press.

IntroductionThis chapter investigates literacy studies with particular

reference to educational theory and practice. The argument isconstructed in four parts. The first sketches some keyelements and stages in the emergence of an explicit and well-subscribed focus on studies of literacy per se from the 1950s.It describes developments in and across establisheddisciplinary areas like history, anthropology, linguistics,sociology and psychology -- developments which, by the 1980s,saw a sociocultural conception of literacy and literacystudies emerge in opposition to the traditional conception.The second part of the argument traces the related emergence

of literacy as a focus of study within education specifically,revealing similar conceptual, theoretical, and normativetensions operating here as occurred in developments outsideeducational theory and practice. The discussion grounds theclaim that what we count as literacy and, hence, as literacystudies, is contestable, and that choices and decisions must

be made. Arguments are provided for the view that literacy andits study should be framed in terms of the socioculturalapproach. What should count and be encouraged as literacystudies in educational and wider academic inquiry and practiceis identified here as what has become known, variously, as

socioliteracy studies (Gee 1996); sociocultural literacy(Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996), and the "new" literacystudies (Barton 1994; Gee 1996; Street 1995).The third part presents a current picture of literacy studies(thus framed) in education. This includes accounts of key goalstatements, constructs, programmatic values, methodologicalapproaches, and practical implications. The final part looks briefly at critical literacy in relationto socioliteracy studies as a whole.


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Part 1 General BackgroundHistorical Studies of LiteracySince the 1950s, the notion of literacy -- as distinct from

reading, writing, composition, grammar, rhetoric,and so on -- has come increasingly to name a focus fortheoretical, conceptual, and research activities across arange of disciplinary areas.

Much of the early work was done by historians. Harvey Graff(1991) argues that by the 1990s historians were entering athird generation of literacy studies. He identifies the firstgeneration of historical studies of literacy as comprisingwork from the late 1960s and into the 70s by people like Stone(1969), Cipolla (1969), and Schofield (1968). This work was

foreshadowed in the 1950s by that of Webb (1955) and Hoggart(1957) on British working class readers, and by Fleury andValmary in France. The first generation literacy historiansmade the case for the direct study of literacy as an importanthistorical factor. It traced at a general level majorchronological trends, transitions, and passages in literacyover periods, and identified factors tied closely to changesin the course of literacy across time, together with itsdynamics, distributions and impacts.Graffs second generation of historical literacy studies

comprised subsequent work by Schofield (1973) and work byJohansson (1977), Lockridge (1974), Cressy (1980), Houston(1983, 1985), Graff (1979), and others. These studiesestablished and drew on the quantitative record of literacy --

mainly using census data, signatory sources, and the like --in a closer and more detailed way than previously. Secondgeneration researchers sought close evidentially-basedhistorical interpretations of changing patterns of literacy,

particularly in terms of the distribution of literacy anddifferent literacy levels within given populations. They alsorelated trends in literacy to economic and social developments

including mass schooling, and to social class formation. Otherwork foregrounded literacy in relation to demographic

behaviour, cultural development, social class stratification,family formation, and the like. It also considered literacy inrelation to literary, cultural, and publishing issues andthemes as, for example, in the various histories of the pressand newspapers produced during this period.Graff saw evidence of an inchoate third generation ofhistorical literacy studies beginning to emerge at the

beginning of the 1990s. This would involve work that movedfrom the more quantitative evidential base employed in the

previous generations to embrace also critical questions


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concerned particularly with developing a cultural politics andpolitical economy of literacy in history -- includingliteracys relations with class, gender, age and culture.Issues of conceptualisation and contextualisation of literacywithin history would become central, benefiting from the

insights of landmark studies in sociocultural approaches toliteracy, such as those by Scribner and Cole (1981), and Heath(1983) -- and, indeed, from interdisciplinary perspectives andcollaborations more generally. Potentially fruitfulinnovations like historical ethnographies were in theoffing, along with possibilities for comparative historicalwork. Graff envisaged increased interest on the part ofhistorians in developing new conceptualisations of context inthe historical study of literacy. This would, among otherthings, temper the earlier focus on literacy as an independent

variable with a stronger sense of literacy as a dependent

variable. In Graffs view, the work of this third generationwould be to make the shift from historical studies ofliteracy to histories that would encompass literacy withintheir context and conceptualisation; that is, from the

history of literacy to literacy in history (Graff 1991:xxii).During the same period addressed by Graff, further importantwork, much of it with a broadly historical and cultural focus,was being done across other disciplinary areas and across arange of themes. Some focused on the Gutenberg phenomenon --

the rise of the printing press as a decisive moment in humancommunication. Seminal works here included Davis Printing andthe People: Society and Culture in Modern France (1975),Eisensteins The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979),and Joyce et als Printing and Society in Early America(1983). These studies mainly worked across history, sociology,and anthropology, typically from cross-disciplinary

perspectives. Within the broad concern with the emergence ofmass print in the context of social practice and change, anumber of scholars focused more particularly on thesignificance of the printing press for the Reformation. Early

studies like R. W. Scribners (1981) For the Sake of SimpleFolk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation, andStrauss (1978) Luthers House of Learning, paved the way fornumerous subsequent studies -- including some within education-- of the nexus between the Gutenberg press and Protestantism(e.g., Luke 1989).

Cross-disciplinary Treks to The Great DivideThe period from the early 1960s to the early 80s also broughtlandmark work by scholars working at various interfaces


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between philosophy, classical studies, anthropology, historyand linguistics. This work profoundly influenced thedevelopment and direction of literacy studies from the mid1980s. Eric Havelock, Jack Goody, and Walter Ong are widelyrecognised as most influential here (see Street 1984; Graff

1991; Gee 1996).Havelocks Preface to Plato (1963), Goody and Ian Watts 1963

paper The consequences of literacy, Goodys TheDomestication of the Savage Mind (1977), and Ongs Orality andLiteracy (1982) identified literacy -- construed as the adventof the alphabetic system and writing -- as a major factor inepistemic, cultural and historical change. Their arguments arevariations around the theme that literacy makes for a "greatdivide" between human cultures and their ways of thinking and modes of cultural organization (Gee 1996: 49-50).

Literacy is seen as a key factor, if not the salient factor,that enables the transition from primitive to advancedculture.Havelock, for example, argued that writing frees humans fromdependence on memory, and from emotional trappings necessaryfor purposes of recall. That is, a written text permitsemotional detachment from texts and, with that, the

possibility for objective reflection upon their content. Newways and possibilities for thinking, judging, synthesising,comparing and so on are seen to accompany the emergence of an

abstract language of descriptive science to replace a concretelanguage of oral memory (Havelock 1963: 209; Gee 1996: 50). Goody and Watts variation on this theme was that important

analytical and logical procedures like syllogistic reasoningand identifying contradictions seem to be a function ofwriting -- since writing permits expression of ideas to beordered, manipulated and compared as visible artifacts. In TheDomestication of the Savage Mind, Goody argued that the sortsof traits typically seen as distinguishing advanced culturesfrom primitive cultures are linked to changes in means and

methods of communication, particularly, writing. Goody saw thedevelopment of writing as crucially linked to the growth ofindividualism, the growth of bureaucracy and of moredepersonalized and more abstract systems of government, aswell as to the development of the abstract thought andsyllogistic reasoning that culminate in modern science (Gee1996: 51).Further elaboration of this theme came from the work of Ong(1977, 1982), who argued that committing language to space

profoundly increases its potential and restructures thought.

Going still further than Goody and Havelock before him, Ong(1982: 14) argued in Orality and Literacy that literacy --


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writing -- is absolutely necessary for the development notonly of science but also history, philosophy, explicativeunderstanding of literature and of any art, and indeed for theexplanation of language (including oral speech) itself.

Across "The Great Divide: Cross-disciplinary Contributions toSociocultural Study of Language and LiteracyThe contributions of scholars like Havelock, Goody, Ong, andothers in similar vein promoted literacy within humanities andsocial science domains alike as a powerful independent

variable which was instrumental in cultures moving fromprimitiveness to advanced states of development. At the

very time this broad line of development was unfolding,

however, very different work was underway across anthropology,linguistics, sociology, and socially-oriented domains of

psychology. This work was highly diverse, whilst sharing abroad common interest in language and communication as socialpractice. The tradition it spawned soon came into directconflict with the great divide/independent variablethesis. This conflict provided a key focus for Brian Street(1984) and others (e.g., Cazden 1998; Cook-Gumperz 1986; deCastell, Luke and Luke 1988; Edelsky, C. 1990; Gee 1989; Hodgeand Kress 1988; Lankshear and Lawler 1987; Levine 1986; Luke1988; Michaels 1981; Scollon and Scollon 1981; Stubbs 1980)

who were involved throughout the 1980s in crystallising andmaking explicit a distinctively sociocultural paradigm ofliteracy studies.This latter line of development was very complex, involving

many strands of activity and influence, not all of which canbe identified here, let alone described in the depth theywarrant. The following selections are indicative, but by no

means exhaustive.In a recent paper James Gee (1998a) describes a broad trend in

theory and research within social sciences and humanitiesdating from the 1970s, which he calls the social turn. Thiswas a turn away from focusing on individuals and their"private" minds and towards interaction and social practice(ibid: 1). Gee maps more than a dozen of the myriaddiscernible movements which collectively made up the socialturn. These movements included the emerging socioculturalapproach to literacy and several which strongly influenced andwere subsequently taken into the new literacy studies(ibid.; Gee 1996: Ch 3).Gee specifically identifies ethnomethodology, conversationanalysis and interactional sociolinguistics; ethnography of


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communication; sociohistorical psychology based on the work ofVygotsky and his associates and Bakhtin; situated cognition;cultural models theory; cognitive linguistics; the new scienceand technology studies pioneered by the work of Latour; moderncomposition theory; connectionism (in cognitive science);

narrative studies; evolutionary approaches to mind andbehaviour; modern developments in sociology associatedparticularly with the work of Giddens; work inpoststructuralism and postmodern social theory centred ondiscourse; and the emerging new literacy studies (Gee1998a).

Classic early work in sociocultural literacy studies with anexplicit educational focus was, perhaps, especially influenced

by developments in ethnography of communication andsociolinguistics spearheaded by people like Dell Hymes (1974,

1980), and by western adoptions of sociohistorical psychologyand related work done earlier in the century in the SovietUnion by Vygotsky and Luria. Shirley Brice Heaths majorethnographic study of language patterns and effects withincommunity, home and school settings across distinct socialgroups in a region of the US owed much to -- and, in turn,contributed greatly to -- the ethnography of communication(Knobel 1997). Heaths 1983 book, Ways with Words, is widely

acknowledged as a seminal foundation study in thesociocultural approach to literacy and literacy studies. Likewise, Sylvia Scribner and Michael Coles 1991 book, ThePsychology of Literacy -- itself very much anethnographically-based study -- forced a major rethink oftraditional approaches in psychology to the cognitive effectsof literacy through its rigorous engagement with a problematicowing much to the earlier Soviet work in sociohistorical

psychology (Street 1984; Gee 1996, 1998a; Wertsch 1985).Besides these social turn movement influences, other notableearly lines of influence on the emerging sociocultural

paradigm included the work of Paulo Freire in Brazil and other

Third World settings from the 1960s, and work done in thenew sociology of education during the 1970s.Freires pedagogy of the oppressed (Freire 1972, 1973, 1974)explicitly denounced psychologistic-technicist reductions ofliteracy, insisting instead that Word and World aredialectically linked, and that education for liberationinvolved relating Word and World within transformativecultural praxis. Freire asserted the impossibility of literacyoperating outside of social practice and, consequently,outside processes of creating and sustaining or re-creating

social worlds. For Freire, the crucial issues concerned thekinds of social worlds humans create in and through their


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language-mediated practices, the interests promoted andsubverted therein, and the historical option facing educationof serving as either an instrument of liberation or ofoppression.The new sociology of education addressed processes by whichand ways in which schooling and school knowledge contributedto reproducing sociocultural stratification along class, race-ethnic and gender lines. Some of this work focused more orless specifically on the workings of language within thelarger historical logic of reproduction. Work contributingto the new sociology corpus by Basil Bernstein (1971, 1975)and Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron (Bourdieu 1977;Bourdieu and Passeron 1971) is widely recognised as having

provided important formative support for the socioculturalapproach to literacy.In 1984 Brian Street presented a telling statement of thesetwo traditions and what was at stake between them. His book,Literacy in Theory and Practice can be read as the firstexplicit programmatic account of literacy studies from thesociocultural point of view. The conceptual heart of his bookcomprised the juxtaposition of two models of literacy: theautonomous model (based on the traditional view ofliteracy) and the ideological model (based on thesociocultural view). Streets account and endorsement of theideological model underpins his extended critique of

theoretical and practical work in literacy based on the notionof literacy as autonomous.Briefly, the autonomous model construes literacy as existingindependently of specific contexts of social practice; havingautonomy from material enactments of language in such

practices; and producing effects independently of contextualsocial factors. Accordingly, literacy is seen as independentof and impartial toward trends and struggles in everyday life-- a neutral variable.The ideological model rejects the notion of an essentialliteracy lying behind actual social practices involving texts.

What literacy is consists in the forms textual engagementtakes within specific material contexts of human practice.These forms, which Street calls conceptions and practices of

reading and writing (plus, we would add, imaging, keying,viewing, etc.), evolve and are enacted in contexts involvingparticular relations and structures of power, values, beliefs,goals and purposes, interests, economic and politicalconditions, and so on. Hence, the consequences of literacyflow not from literacy itself, but from the conjoint

operation of the text-related components and all the otherfactors integral to the practices in question. The myriad


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literacies that play out in social life should be seen asintegral components of larger practices, simultaneouslyreflecting and promoting particular values, beliefs, socialrelations, patterns of interests, concentrations of power, andthe like. In no way, then, can literacy be seen as neutral

or as a producer of effects in its own right.

Part 2 Toward Literacy Studies in EducationSome Developments and Complications within EducationTheoretical, pedagogical, and research activity concerned withaspects of reading and writing have continued uninterruptedthroughout this century within education. Much of it has been

dominated by paradigms from psychology, and has aimed tounderstand reading, writing, spelling, and comprehension ascognitive and behavioural processes in order to improveteaching and learning approaches to mastering written texts.

While this tradition is long and widely established, it tendednot to be identified as literacy work until quite recently.Those working in the field did so mainly under the rubric ofreading, writing and related terms, as reflected in thenames of long established journals and professionalassociations: e.g., The International Reading Association,which publishes The Reading Teacher, and the US-based National

Reading Conference, which publishes The Journal of ReadingBehavior.

Nonetheless, enclaves of educational inquiry concernedexplicitly with literacy per se did exist. For example, fromat least the 1950s scholars concerned with the economics ofeducation and educational development and planning, amongothers, were vitally concerned with social implications andefficacies of literacy. This concern was writ large, forinstance, in the World Literacy Program of UNESCO from the1950s. In addition, of course, within adult and continuing

education, and extensions studies departments in countrieslike the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada,there has been an interest in adult literacy for severaldecades, often associated with migrant populations as well aseducationally disadvantaged individuals from the native-speaking mainstream. Certainly, functional literacy has beena clearly and strongly defined area of research and

pedagogical interest in the US and elsewhere since the SecondWorld War. Nonetheless, until the late 1970s, an educationalinterest couched explicitly in terms of literacy remainedquite marginal.


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During the past two decades, however, talk of literacy inrelation to school-based learning and teacher education has

become increasingly common. The term has increasinglydisplaced references to reading and writing in policy

statements and school learning programs, as well as in the

names of courses, subjects, departments, schools, anddivisions within teacher education institutions. LiteracyStudies has emerged as a generic name for diverse activitiesin research and scholarship broadly concerned withunderstanding and enhancing the production, reception, andtransmission of texts. At the same time, Literacy has becomea major focus for teacher professional development and policyformulation within education systems. In many cases, thechange in terminology has not been accompanied by anysubstantial visible change in practice (Lankshear 1993a).Familiar paradigms, questions, and procedures for inquiry

remain intact, but now go under a different name.In addition, important work has been undertaken at the severalinterfaces between literacy, English as a school subject, andcurriculum theory and practice (Green 1993). From anhistorical standpoint, English has been the site whereliteracy work has been done with regard to the school (BillGreen, personal communication). This work goes well beyondliteracy work in the narrow sense of teaching basic literacyskills as components of primary and secondary school

programs in Language/English. It involves also curricular

studies undertaken within English sub(ject) areas likecomposition, rhetoric, textual studies, semiotics, grammar andthe like. Taking a still wider perspective on the relationship

between literacy and curriculum studies in theory andpractice, educationists and linguists alike have addresseddiverse aspects of subject (specific) literacies e.g., (Green1988, 1993; Lankshear 1993b; Lemke 1990; Martin 1989, 1992).Such work includes accounts of varying genres associated withsubject-based modes of inquiry and production, as well asaddressing aspects and issues of subject disciplines asdiscursive practices.

At an institutional level, surface manifestations of theemergence of literacy studies include the growing numbers ofschools, departments, divisions, research centers, and otherorganisational units within teacher education faculties whosenames profess a direct concern with literacy studies. Many ofthe larger teacher education faculties in Australianuniversities have Schools or Divisions of Language andLiteracy Education, for instance. Other indices include thenames of academic and professional journals, professionalassociations, categories within publishers lists and book

series, etc. In some cases, these examples have involved namechanges from earlier incarnations. For example, the former


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everything from theories about and methodologies for teachingchildrens literature, to ethnographic analyses of computer-

mediated communication practices, via approaches to teachingand learning the mechanics of encoding and decoding print, andsurveys of literacy levels. By contrast, if we adopt some

kind of prescriptive definition of literacy, the account weprovide of the field will be much narrower and more focused.If we focus on explicit reference to literacy, the emergenceof a literacy studies focus within education has, then, beenrapid. Of course, to the extent that literacy is understoodgenerally and by implication in terms of reading, writing,transmitting and receiving texts, we might say that there has

been a concern with literacy studies for as long as there hasbeen a theoretical and research concern with education - itwas just a matter of nomenclature. This accords with Gees

(1990, 1996, 1998a and b) notion of the new literacy studies,based on his distinction between the traditional conceptionof literacy as reading and writing (an old literacy studies)and the more recently informed conception of literacy associocultural practice. From the perspective of literacy asreading and writing we can identify the great mass ofeducational work on reading, writing, and the like as literacystudies, even though it mainly did not fall under the rubricof what will be identified here as literacy studies. When wefocus on literacy studies as the study of literacy as a

profoundly social phenomenon, however, it is clear that

literacy studies in education really only begins to emergewith anything like a critical mass from the 1980s.There are, then, at least two related issues to be resolvedwhich bear directly on further discussion of the nature andemergence of literacy studies from an educational point of

view: namely, (a) what kind of questions are we asking in thefirst place (quantitative/qualitative; operational/normative;descriptive/prescriptive)?; (b) what stand are we to take withregard to radically competing constructions of literacy?In education, as in other disciplines and areas of practicenoted above, literacy has traditionally been thought of interms of reading and writing - although with interesting

variations. Educationists have mostly seen literacy as alargely psychological ability -- something true to do with ourheads (Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996: 1) and, to that extent,a somewhat private possession. This reflects the heavydomination of educational research and theory by psychologythroughout this century. Being literate has meant masteringdecoding and encoding skills, entailing cognitive capacitiesinvolved in cracking the alphabetic code, word formation,

phonics, grammar, comprehension, and so on (referred to by Gee1998b as design features of language). Encoding and decoding


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skills serve as building blocks for doing other things and foraccessing meanings. According to this view, once one isliterate one can get on with learning -- by studying subjectsin a curriculum, or by other print-mediated means. Once peopleare literate they can use it (the skill repertoire, the

ability) in all sorts of ways as a means to pursuing diversebenefits (employment, knowledge, recreational pleasure,personal development, economic growth, innovation, etc.). Ofcourse, this predominantly psychological view has beencomplemented in educational thinking by the more externalnotion of literacy as a tool or technology. This is stronglyreflected at present in notions of technological literacy asinvolving mastery of computers.If we go along with this traditionally dominant view ofliteracy within education we can say that literacy studies

have been going on in educational inquiry as far back as wecare to go, and that it matters little whether or not theactivities have been named in terms of literacy or not. Thecontingent fact that interest in literacy as such hasescalated dramatically during the past 20-25 years withincountries like our own might be explained quite simply byreference to successive pronouncements of educational crisisand falling standards. These have attended growing awareness

of the extent and speed of contemporary social, economic,technological, and demographic change, and fears of beingovertaken by other countries. This has been a period in

which literacy has been rediscovered locally as a keyelement of human capital (Luke 1992) -- overlapping withnumerous mass mobilisations around literacy(campaigns/crusades) in Third World or underdevelopedcountries -- and where postindustrialism has been recognisedas upping the ante for literacy in the developed world(Levett and Lankshear 1994: 28). In an intriguing paralleldevelopment, the notion of a critical mass of literate people

being a crucial variable for economic take-off intoindustrialism (see, for example, Anderson and Bowman 1966),which was still playing out in the Third World, received a

second generation replay for postindustrialism. Within this context, literacy came to name the most urgenteducational tasks of the day and, correspondingly, a good dealof work which had always been going on under other namessuddenly became literacy work. As a leading educational

theme and task, literacy was everywhere - in functional,cultural and critical spaces and at all levels frombasic to higher order literacies, by way of technologicalliteracy scientific literacy, and the like (Lankshear1998). In Australia, the embrace was near to total. 1991

brought The Australian Language and Literacy Policy (DEET1991). Schools, divisions, and departments of language and


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literacy education mushroomed within amalgamated (teacher)educational faculties. Entire research project programsdevoted to literacy -- some of them falling within the

prestigious Commonwealth Competitive Grants Scheme rubric --emerged, generating impetus for research centres specialising

in literacy research. Adult and workplace literacy became bigbusiness, enjoying exponential increases in funding. ANational Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia wasformed with federal funding to play a strategic role in policyimplementation.The whole shebang -- which serves neatly as a trope forliteracy studies from the literacy-as-being-about-reading-and-writing perspective -- accommodates pretty much anythingand everything to do with the universe of written texts underthe umbrella of literacy studies: from work on the most

mechanistic approaches to diagnosing and curing disabilitieswith encoding and decoding, to the most esoteric reaches ofliterary theory, via approaches to childrens literature, bigbooks pedagogy, planning and programming for classroomlanguage and literacy education, critical approaches toreading, writing and viewing, and the theory and methodologyof second/other/foreign language education. In thisconstruction of literacy studies, its all (equally) a part of

the mix. Proponents of the most decontextualised skills-basedapproaches to teaching and researching reading and writing co-habit with literary theorists, proponents of cultural

literacy, genre theorists, and advocates of the new literacystudies, among others.This, however, is not the line I will take here. I do notaccept the traditional view of literacy but, rather, thesociocultural view. Neither do I accept an operationalapproach to the question of what constitutes literacy studies,whereby literacy studies includes what(ever) is undertaken inschools of departments of literacy education, or centres forliteracy studies and the like. Instead, I share Gees (1996)view that literacy should be recognised as a social

contested concept Hence, I take the question of whatconstitutes literacy studies as a domain of academic practiceto be normative.

Framing Literacy Studies for Education: For a SocioculturalParadigmThe kinds of questions we ask about literacy studies, and theissue of how we frame literacy are not minor matters but,rather, amount to nothing less than taking up a stance for oragainst particular discursive practices.


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Building educational theory and practice on the traditional,autonomous view of literacy has undesirable consequences. Bycontrast, educational endeavour is advanced in progressiveways by taking seriously the questions of how literacy should

be framed and what we should count as falling under literacy

studies, and answering these questions in terms of asociocultural perspective.Gee makes two important points here. First, he identifiesliteracy as an example of a socially contestedterm, andargues that debate about literacy ultimately comes down to

moral choices about what theories one wants to hold based onthe sorts of social worlds these theories underwrite in thepresent or make possible in the future (Gee 1996: 123).Second, he claims that arguing about what words (ought to)

mean is not a trivial business -- it is not mere words,

hair splitting, or just semantics -- when these argumentsare over socially contested terms. Such arguments are whatlead to the adoption of social beliefs and the theories behindthem, and these theories and beliefs lead to social action andthe maintenance and creation of social worlds. (ibid: 15-16)This is the approach I assume here. Taking literacy to be asocial contested term clearly entails approaching the questionof what constitutes literacy studies as a normative matter.

Accordingly, we need to note the sorts of grounds andarguments advanced by proponents of sociocultural conceptions

of literacy and literacy studies. My stance is that literacystudies is best understood in terms ofacademic/scholarly/research activities that seek to understandliteracy as sociocultural practice, to build on theseunderstandings ethically, politically, and pedagogically, andto advance them conceptually and theoretically.

Toward a sociocultural approach to literacy studies Understanding literacy as sociocultural practice means thatreading and writing can only be understood in the context ofthe social, cultural, political, economic, historical

practices to which they are integral; of which they are apart. This view lies at the heart of what Gee (1996) calls thenew literacy studies, or socioliteracy studies -- which iswhat will count as literacy studies (proper) for the rest ofthis discussion (see also Barton 1994; Street 1984, 1993,1995). The relationship between human practice and the

production, distribution, exchange, refinement, contestation,etc., of meanings is a key idea here. Human practices are

meaningful ways of doing things, or getting things done(Franklin 1990). There is no practice without meaning, just as


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there is no meaning outside of practice. Within contexts ofhuman practice, language (words, literacy, texts) gives

meaning to contexts and, dialectically, contexts give meaningto language. Hence, there is no reading or writing in any

meaningful sense of the terms outside of social practices, or

discourses.These elementary points are fundamental to the groundsadvanced in support of a sociocultural perspective on literacyagainst the traditional view. Three main grounds can bedistinguished in the literature. I will sketch these briefly

by way of introducing a fuller account of (socio)literacystudies.

* We cannot make sense of our experience of literacy withoutreference to social practice

If we see literacy as simply reading and writing -- whetherin the sense of encoding and decoding print, as a tool, skillsor technology, or as some kind of psychological process -- wecannot make sense of our literacy experience. In short (seeGee, Hull and Lankshear 1996: 1-4 for the detailed argument),reading (or writing) is always reading something in particular

with understanding. Different kinds of text require somewhatdifferent backgrounds and somewhat different skills if theyare to be read (i.e., meaningfully). Moreover, particulartexts can be read in different ways, contingent upon differentpeoples experiences of practices in which these texts occur.A Christian Fundamentalist, for example, will read texts fromthe Bible in radically different ways from, say, a liberationtheology priest.Learning to read and write particular kinds of texts in

particular ways presupposes immersion in social practices

where participants not only read texts of this type in thisway but also talk about such texts in certain ways, holdcertain attitudes and values about them, and socially interactover them in certain ways (ibid: 3). Different histories of

literate immersion yield different forms of reading andwriting as practice. The texts we read and write -- any andall texts we read and write; even the most arid (and otherwisemeaningless) drill and skill, remedial session readings --are integral elements of lived, talked, enacted, value-and-

belief-laden practices engaged in under specific conditions,at specific times and in specific places (ibid.).Consequently, it is impossible to abstract or decontextualiseliteracy bits from their larger embedded practices and have


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them still mean what they do in fact mean experientially.This, however, is what the traditional conception of literacydoes, in effect, try to do -- and to this extent it isincoherent.

* The sociocultural model has necessary theoretical scope andexplanatory power

The sociocultural model provides a proven basis for framing,understanding, and addressing some of the most importantliteracy education issues we face: issues which cannot beframed effectively -- let alone addressed -- from the

traditional perspective on account of its individualist,inner, or abstracted skills and processes orientation.These include issues of patterned differentials in literacyoutcomes and learning achievements across social groups, andapparently anomalous instances of learners who demonstratecompetence in diverse social practices and their embeddedliteracies, yet fail to come to terms with school literacy.Burgeoning work in socioliteracy studies (Barton and Hamilton1998; Barton and Ivanic 1991; Heath 1983; Knobel 1997, 1998;

Moll 1992) highlights important inherent differences between

characteristically school literacies and those integral towider social practices. It also documents some of the ways inwhich and extent to which there is a closer fit for somesocial groups between school literacies and their widerdiscursive experiences and acquisitions than there is forother social groups (Gee 1991; 1996). These differences cuttwo ways within the context of school learning.First, as Heaths work (1982; 1983) shows, children fromdiverse social groups may learn to decode and encode print inthe literal sense (i.e., be able to read words from a page and

write words on a page) without being able to cash in thislearning on equitable terms in respect of valorised schoolliteracies. Heath (1982), for example, shows how working classchildren performed comparably with middle class children inentry level grades on literacy tasks, but fell progressively

behind in subsequent grades. This, she argued, was a functionof literacy in subsequent grades drawing on particular waysof talking, believing, valuing, acting, and living out thattranscend (merely) mechanical aspects of encoding and decodingtexts, and that are differentially available within the social

practices (discourses) of different social groups (see, e.g.,Heath 1982; Gee 1991; 1996; Lankshear 1997). The traditional


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conception of literacy is powerless to get at these kinds ofanalyses and explanations.Second, many learners who are highly proficient at certaintext-mediated practices in out-of-school contexts come to

grief with school literacy even, at times, to the extent ofperforming badly on what appear to be routine encoding anddecoding tasks. (For a classic recent example, see MicheleKnobels (1997, 1999) account of Jacques. For an equallygraphic parallel from the adult world, see Kells (1996)account of Winnie TsoTso.) Pedagogical approaches which drawon the traditional conception of literacy and try to enhance -- or remediate -- learning by focusing more explicitly andintensely on the design features of literacy (Gee 1998b)often fail. A sociocultural approach offers fruitful ways ofunderstanding and addressing what is going on here that are

not available from the traditional approach to literacy. Theseinclude analysing ineffective pedagogies from the standpointthat they confuse learning and acquisition (Krashen 1982;Gee 1991; Lankshear 1997 Ch. 3), and/or that they do notdifferentiate between the design and function features oflanguage and, hence, fail to build upon the distinction in

pedagogically informed and effective ways (Gee 1998b). Manystudents may simply fail to grasp the point of schoolliteracies on account of the gulf that often exists betweenschool practices and the real life or mature versions ofsocial practices learners experience in their larger lives.

These real world practices are typically a long way removedfrom essayism and the initiation-response-evaluationroutines so prevalent in school discourse (Cazden 1988;

Michaels 1981; Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996: Ch 1.More generally, of course, sociocultural perspectives onliteracy and learning provide powerful bases for pedagogicalinterventions aimed at high quality learning. These are

becoming increasingly influential in shaping learningapproaches beyond school classrooms, and are exemplified by

models of learning derived from work in situated cognition

(e.g., Lave and Wenger 1991), sociohistorical psychology(Wertsch 1991), ethnography of communication (Heath and

Mangiola 1991; Moll 1992), and cognitive science (e.g., Brownet al 1993; Bereiter and Scardamalia 1993); as well as fromwork based on cultural apprenticeship (Rogoff 1990), and

various approaches to critical literacy, collaborative andcooperative education, and distributed cognition (e.g.,Bizzell 1992; Bloome and Green 1991; Edwards and Mercer 1987;cf, Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996: Ch 3 for an overview).


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* Unwanted theoretical trappings and implications for socialworlds

Proponents of socioliteracy studies identify a raft oftheoretical tendencies and implications attaching to thetraditional view of literacy which they argue areeducationally, morally, and politically regressive. Forexample, they see the traditional view going hand in glovewith quantitative approaches and worldviews like

psychometrics, measurable levels of academic (dis)ability and(il)literacy, quantifications of functionality, and so on.These lend themselves to constructing learners who experiencedifficulties with school literacy as deficit systems (e.g.,as having inadequate or inappropriate home support for school

learning; not enough books -- or the right kind of books -- inthe home, etc.) or, in many cases, as learning disabled,academically challenged, slow learners, ADD, etc. Suchtheories and constructs support the creation of particularkinds of social worlds (Gee 1996: 123). Policies and

practices emphasising diagnostic assessment, remedialassistance programs, regular reporting against profiles,standards or benchmarks, packages of special learning-teaching techniques, and the like are natural concomitantsof the traditional view. More subtle affiliations includethe creation of social worlds grounded in possessive

individualism, commodification, and generalised logics ofinstrumental and measurable value (think: exchange values,comparative advantage, added value, competency portfolios,etc.).

Such theoretical baggage and its implications for the kindsof social worlds we create (and dont create) are writ largewithin the current education reform regime which, of course,gives very high priority to literacy (and numeracy) defined inthoroughly traditional and autonomous terms. Currenteducation reform proposals construct literacy as

individualised, standardised, and commodified in the extreme.They constitute standard English literacy as the indisputablenorm, advocate the technologizing of literacy tounprecedented levels, and tie the significance and value ofliteracy in increasingly narrow and instrumental ways toeconomic viability and demands of citizenship (see Lankshear1998 for detailed discussion).

Not surprisingly, advocates of socioliteracy studies arguethat their approach provides a more morally acceptable andhumane basis on which to base educational practice and social

reform than do theories, concepts, values, and practices


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coalescing around the traditional view of literacy (cf, Gee1996: 123).

Part 3 Literacy Studies in Education: A Current PictureThose working within literacy studies, as framed here, aim toenhance our conceptual and theoretical understanding ofliteracy as sociocultural practice, and encourage educational

practices which build on these understandings pedagogically,ethically, and politically. This work involves multiplecomponent tasks. These include:

i. providing theoretically informed accounts of socioculturalpractice in general

ii. clarifying literacy as (an integral component of)sociocultural practice

iii. articulating a moral position and a political ideal toinform theoretical and practical work in literacy education

iv. researching and analysing literacy in use, and theoutcomes and effects of instances of literacy in use under

their particular conditions of social practice

v. assessing examples of literacy in use in relation to moraland political ideals for literacy

vi. advancing ideas for promoting literacy practices thatpromote these ideals, and for redressing literacy practicesthat impede them

vii. informing literacy pedagogy with insights gained from theabove-mentioned work.

The corpus of work falling under these descriptions is alreadyvast, and generalising from it is beyond the scope of thischapter. Contributions vary in scope as well as in their moredetailed theoretical investments. For an ostensive definitionof representative current work in literacy studies, we mightreasonably look to Taylor and Francis series, CriticalPerspectives on Literacy and Education, edited by Allan Luke.


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Rather than attempt the futile task of reducing current workin socioliteracy studies to a list of accurategeneralisations, I will simply identify briefly someartifacts and emphases which may be seen as typical

progressive moves within the discourse of socioliteracy

studies and note some of their implications for literacyeducation. There are, of course, many besides those notedhere.

i. A sociocultural definition of literacyAny acceptable and illuminating sociocultural definition ofliteracy has to make sense of reading, writing and meaning-

making as integral elements of social practices. Such a

definition is provided by Gee (1996), who defines literacy inrelation to Discourses. Discourses are socially recognisedways of using language (reading, writing, speaking,listening), gestures and other semiotics (images, sounds,graphics, signs, codes), as well as ways of thinking,

believing, feeling, valuing, acting/doing and interacting inrelation to people and things, such that we can be identifiedand recognised as being a member of a socially meaningfulgroup, or as playing a socially meaningful role (cf Gee 1991,1996, 1998a). To be in, or part of, a Discourse means thatothers can recognise us as being a this or a that (a

pupil, mother, priest, footballer, mechanic), or a particularversion of a this or that (a reluctant pupil, a dotingmother, a radical priest, a bush mechanic) by virtue of howwe are using language, believing, feeling, acting, dressing,doing, and so on. Language is a dimension of Discourse, butonly one dimension, and Gee uses discourse (with a small "d")to mark this relationship. As historical productions,Discourses change over time, but at any given point aresufficiently defined for us to tell when people are in them. Gee distinguishes our primary Discourse from our various

secondary Discourses. Our primary Discourse is how we learn todo and be (including speaking and expressing) within ourfamily (or face to face intimate) group during our early life.It (we each have only one primary Discourse, although thereare many different primary Discourses) comprises our firstnotions of who people like us are, and what people like usdo, think, value, and so on. Our secondary Discourses (and weeach have many of these, although they differ from person to

person) are those we are recruited to through participation inoutside groups and institutions, such as schools, clubs,workplaces, churches, political organisations, and so on.

These all draw upon and extend our resources from our primaryDiscourse, and may be nearer to or further away from our


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primary Discourse. The further away a secondary Discourse isfrom our primary Discourse and our other secondary Discourses-- as in the case of children from marginal social groups whostruggle to get a handle on the culture of school classrooms -- the more we have to stretch our discursive resources to

perform within that Discourse. Often in such cases we simplyare unable to operate the Discourse at the level of fluent

performance.Gee holds that any socially useful definition of literacy must

build on the notion of Discourse and the distinction betweenprimary and secondary Discourses. In part this is because thecontext of all language use is some specific social practiceor other, which is always part of some Discourse or other. Geedefines literacy as mastery (or, fluent performance) of asecondary Discourse (Gee 1996). Hence, to be literate means

being able to handle all aspects of competent performance ofthe Discourse, including the literacy bits: that is, to beable to handle the various human and non human elements ofcoordinations (Gee 1997; Latour 1987; Knorr Cetina 1992)effected by Discourses. To play a role, be a particularidentity, etc., is a matter of both getting coordinated as anelement in a Discourse, and of coordinating other elements.Language/literacy is a crucial element of discursivecoordinating, but it is only one aspect, and the otherelements need to be in sync for fluent performance --literacy -- to be realised.This idiosyncratic, but powerful sociocultural conception ofliteracy has much to offer education.

* It honours the reality of myriad literacies -- since thereare myriad secondary Discourses.

* It takes the emphasis off print competence (skills, innerprocesses), whilst retaining a contingent link with print byvirtue of the fact that most secondary Discourses (being nonface-to-face/non kinship) involve print -- which must now beextended to include digitally encoded language. This remindsus that literacy is never an end in itself, but always a partof larger purposes. To this extent, we may get variouslanguage/literacy bits right, but to little effect, becauseof failures to get other elements coordinated. This is whyso many pupils can learn to encode and decode print/digitaltexts and yet fail to achieve in school and wider world

Discourses.


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* It denounces the misguided notion of literacy beingfoundational or linked in a linear way to largerpractices. It is not as if we learn the print stuff and can

then go on and use it in straightforward applications toforms of life.

* To this extent it puts the emphasis within education in theright places, insisting that literacies be acquired whole.This generates important issues of pedagogy, long silencedwithin education, but being increasingly recognised beyondformal schooling (Heath and McLaughlin 1994; Gee, Hull andLankshear 1996: Chs. 1-3).

* It provides a basis for questioning the narrow and peculiarprivileging of characteristic School Discourse(s), and theassumed relationships between school learning and widerdomains of social practice (ibid).

* Similarly, it provides a basis for understanding patterned

differentials in school literacy-mediated achievement -- interms of the fact that many primary Discourses are far removedfrom school Discourse(s).

* At the same time it helps explain why bridging the gapbetween primary Discourse experiences and secondary discursivecompetence proves so difficult. As is evident in our primaryDiscourse, coming to acquire mastery of the variouscoordinations takes a long time, and much of the mastery comes

by way of immersed acquisition rather than through instructedlearning.

* It focuses our attention on the arbitrariness and injusticeinherent in historically produced hierarchies of Discoursesand, therefore, in the processes whereby schooling privilegescertain literacies over others; thereby advantaging thosewhose primary and other secondary Discourses fit moreclosely with the cultural selections of school and the widersocial order (Gee 1991; 1996). This helps us unmasksimplistic and ingenuous models and rhetorics of empowerment


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(for elaborations see Freire 1972; Delgado-Gaitan 1990;Lankshear 1994).

ii. A three dimensional view of effective literacyFrom a sociocultural perspective, literacy must, as Bill Greenputs it, : be seen in 3D, as having three interlockingdimensions - the operational, the cultural, and the critical -which bring together language, meaning and context (Green1988: 160-163). An integrated view of literacy in practice andin pedagogy addresses all three dimensions simultaneously;none has any necessary priority over the others.The operational dimension refers to what Green calls the

means of literacy (ibid: 160). It is in and through themedium of language that the literacy event happens. Controlof the operational dimension involves competency with regardto the language system. When we speak of the operationaldimension of literacy we point to the manner in whichindividuals use language in literacy tasks, in order tooperate effectively in specific contexts. This is toemphasise the written language system and how adequately itis handled. When we address literacy from this perspective,we focus on the ability of individuals to read and write in arange of contexts, in an appropriate and adequate manner:

that is, to focus on the language aspect of literacy (seeGreen 1988, 1997a, 1997b; see also Lankshear, Bigum et al 1997

vol. 1).The cultural dimension involves what Green calls the meaningaspect of literacy, and competency with regard to themeaning system(Green 1988: 160). This is to recognise thatbesides being context specific, literacy acts and events arealso content specific. In other words, we are never simplyliterate (in and of itself) but, rather, always literatewith regard to something, some aspect of knowledge or

experience (ibid). The cultural aspect of literacy is amatter of understanding texts in relation to contexts - toappreciate their meaning; the meaning they need to make inorder to be appropriate; and what it is about given contextsof practice that makes for appropriateness orinappropriateness of particular ways of reading and writing.Take, for example, the case of a worker producing aspreadsheet within a workplace setting or routine. This is nota simple matter of going into some software program and

filling in the data. Spreadsheets must be compiled - whichmeans knowing their purpose and constructing their axes andcategories accordingly. To know the purpose of a particularspreadsheet requires understanding relevant elements of the


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culture of the immediate work context; to know why one isdoing what one is doing now, how to do it, and why what one isdoing is appropriate (ibid; see also Lankshear, Bigum et al1997 vol. 1).The critical dimension of literacy has to do with the sociallyconstructed nature of all human practices and meaning systems.In order to be able to participate effectively and

productively in any social practice, humans must be socialisedinto it. But social practices and their meaning systems arealways selective and sectional; they represent particularinterpretations and classifications (Green 1988: 162). Iflearners are not also given access to the grounds forselection and the principles of interpretation, we can saythat they are being merely socialised into the dominant

meaning system, and constrained from playing active parts in

transforming it. Acknowledging the critical dimension ofliteracy is the basis for ensuring that participants are notconfined merely to participating in established practices and

making meanings within them, but that they can also invarious ways, transform and actively produce it (ibid). This 3D model provides a very useful adjunct to thedefinition of literacy in terms of secondary Discourses. Itgives due significance to the operational dimension, whichincludes the mechanical aspects of encoding and decoding,whilst insisting on recognition that much more is required of

a pedagogy for effective literacy. In the current educationreform context, this provides a valuable basis for critiquingunduly narrow constructions of effective literacy (cf DEET1991a and b; DEETYA 1998). It also speaks usefully andpowerfully to specific components of literacy strategieswithin current reform plans: such as reporting profiles,literacy standards or benchmarks, and the like. Forexample, benchmarks would need to be framed in ways thathonour literacy as sociocultural practice. They could not bereduced to (merely) textual lowest common denominators,since text stands to literacy as discourse stands to Discourse

in Gees conceptual scheme. In addition, assessment would needto be of literacy in practice: that is, as an embedded andintegrated component of Discourse events or moves. Equally, the 3D model accommodates important issues at theinterface of literacy studies and curriculum theory and

practice - such as subject-specific literacies, and teachingand learning within the English subjects. It is probably fairto say that facets are still in the process of negotiatingtheir places within and relationship to the overall field ofliteracy studies. Many English teachers, for example, prefer

to think of their work as involving considerably more thanliteracy. From a sociocultural standpoint, however, the


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interface between literacy studies and curriculum theory andpractice is a key area for further development.

iii. Applications of cultural apprenticeship models oflearning to literacy pedagogy

Adopting a sociocultural frame for literacy studies opens theway for exploring the potential for literacy pedagogy to beinformed and enhanced by models of learning developed withinother component movements of the social turn. In anaccount of what more authentic school-based curriculum and

pedagogy might look like, Heath and McLaughlin (1994: 472)critique classroom pedagogies which create "authenticity"artificially rather than study contextually authentic

curricula -- authentic to youth -- in supportiveorganizational structures. They argue that classroomeducators can learn much from examining effective grass-rootsorganisations like the Girl Guides, Girls Club, and dramagroups. These provide rich social contexts and opportunitiesfor learning to learn for anything everyday by means of[cognitive and social] apprenticeship, peer learning,

authentic tasks, skill-focused practices and real outcomemeasures, such as completed public projects, performances,displays and exhibitions (ibid.). Heath and McLaughlin believethese characteristic features of effective authentic learning

converge in Barbara Rogoffs (1990; also Rogoff 1995) accountof learning through sociocultural activity. Rogoff advances three planes of analysis for interpreting andevaluating learning. These are apprenticeship, guided

participation, and participatory appropriation. Theycorrespond with community, interpersonal, and personal

processes. While these planes are mutually constituting,interdependent and inseparable, identifying them individuallyenables particular aspects of a learning process to be broughtinto sharp focus for analytic purposes.According to Rogoff, apprenticeship operates within a planeof community and institutional activity and describes activeindividuals participating with others in culturally organizedways (1995:142). The primary purpose of apprenticeship is tofacilitate mature participation in the activity by lessexperienced people (ibid.). Experts -- who continue todevelop and refine their expertise -- and peers in thelearning process are integral to Rogoff's account ofapprenticeship (Rogoff 1995, p. 143). Both categories ofparticipant find themselves engaging in activities with

others of varying experience and moving through cycles oflearning, teaching, and practice. Investigating and


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interpreting sociocultural apprenticeship focuses attention onthe activity being learned (with its concomitant skills,

processes, and content knowledge), and on its relationshipwith community practices and institutions -- eschewingtraditional conceptions of apprenticeship as an expert-novice

dyad.Guided participation encompasses processes and systems of

involvement between people as they communicate and co-ordinateefforts while participating in culturally valued activity(ibid.). It involves a range of interpersonal interactions.These include face-to-face interactions, side-by-sideinteractions (which are more frequent face-to-faceinteractions within everyday life), and other interactionalarrangements where activities do not require everyone involvedto be present. Hence, for Rogoff, guidance is provided by

cultural and social values, as well as [by] social partnerswho may be local or distant (1995, p. 142). Participatory appropriation refers to personal processes of

ongoing and dynamic engagement with learning through sociallycontextualised and purposeful activities that ultimatelytransform the learner. Rogoff uses this concept to describeprocesses by which people transform their understanding ofand responsibility for activities through their ownparticipation (Rogoff 1995, p. 150). Here analysis focuses onchanges that learners undergo in gaining facility with an

activity, as well as acceptable changes learners make toactivities in the process of becoming experts, enabling themto engage with subsequent similar activities and their social

meanings.As a model of pedagogy for effective learning, culturalapprenticeship has important implications for literacyeducation. By grounding learning as far as possible withinsettings where genuine opportunities are available forapprenticeship to skills and procedures, and where conditionsexist for guided participation and participatory

appropriation, it minimises counterproductive forms ofabstract(ed) and decontextualised activity. At the same timeit allows for skill refinement through repetition, drillingand the like (c.f., the practice and training dimensions ofsports and games) - but within situations and settings thatapproximate to the real thing. With the drilling,habituation, repetition, in other words, come also concreteand embodied experiences of participation that convey situatedcultural understanding.

At the same time, the cultural apprenticeship model is

basically one of enculturation: learners are recruited toDiscourses from the inside. While this may be very effective


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for mastering operational and cultural dimensions of literacy,it may work against the critical. This recovers forclassroom learning an important role which -- almost bydefinition -- cannot be undertaken in situ and in role: i.e.,the tasks of identifying and judging the values, purposes,

interests, perspectives, and the like that are written intoparticular Discourses, and those that are thereby written out.

Part 4 Critical Literacy and Socioliteracy StudiesThe relationship between critical literacy and socioliteracystudies is interesting from an historical-developmental

perspective. By the early 1990s it was common for literacytheorists to speak of critical literacy as one of several

competing Discourses of literacy -- along with functionalliteracy and cultural literacy, among others. This largelyreflected the emergence of a critical literacy school out ofthe work of Paulo Freire and the critical theory of theFrankfurt School. Critical literacy emerged as an aspect ofthe larger phenomenon of a radical alternative educationalperspective (including such things as the new sociology,

critical theory applied to education, critical pedagogy, etc.)to the longstanding liberal view of education. It was framedin conscious distinction from and opposition to cultural andfunctional models (the latter equating roughly with the

operational component of the 3D model). This separationoften served to marginalise critical literacy from achievingthe broad-based constituency it sought, which called for waysof taking functional and cultural considerations seriouslywithin a larger pedagogy.

With the emergence of a defined field of socioliteracy studiesit is now easier to frame and pursue critical literacy workwithin the ambit of a transcendent sociocultural ideal ofliteracy: that is, as an integral component of literacy inthree dimensions. Building on ideas already canvassed in this

chapter, we can expand the brief statement of the criticaldimension of the 3D model by way of concluding thisdiscussion.

Work within socioliteracy studies identifies at least threerelated levels of activity involved in the critical dimensionof literacy: namely,

* developing a critical perspective on literacy per se. Thisis precisely the kind of thing the sociocultural approach toliteracy exemplifies. Gees account of literacy, for


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example, invokes meta level understandings of language in usewhich enable a critical stance to be adopted toward otherconstructions of literacy and their implications (see, forexample, Kress 1996; Wallace 1992; New London Group 1996;

Muspratt, Freebody and Luke 1997; Lankshear 1997; Gee 1996);

* engaging in critique of particular texts or specificinstances of literacy in use. This involves developing andusing techniques which reveal how texts do work and produceeffects as elements of larger social practices and discursivecoordinations. This presupposes drawing on some theory orideal -- ethical, political, educational -- as a basis forchoosing and employing particular kinds of techniques in thefirst place, as well as for making judgments about textual

practices/literacy in use in the light of the analysisperformed (e.g., Gee 1998a and b; 1996: ch 5; Luke 1992; Kress1985; Fairclough 1989, 1992; Schiffrin 1987, 1994);

* making critical readings of Discourses and enacting formsof resistance or transformative practice on the basis of

preferred ethical, political and educational values/ideals(e.g., Fairclough 1989; Gee 1996; Lankshear 1997, Muspratt,Luke and Freebody 1997). This would include the kind of work

that seeks to explain and critique the operation of schoolliteracies as interest-serving selections from a largerculture, which systematically advantage some groups andlanguage communities over others.

In a recent statement, Gee integrates these levels of activityin making a case for making concern with a particular kind ofwork central to socioliteracy studies. This is what he callsenactive and recognition work: work done by human beings

as they go about getting coordinated and coordinating otherelements within everyday participation in Discourses -- aconception which owes much to the work of Latour (1987, 1991and Knorr Cetina 1992).Gee argues that social worlds are created and sustained byhuman beings organizing and coordinating materials in waysthat others (come to) recognise; to see as meaningful. Thesematerials are, of course, the stuff of Discourses:people, things, artifacts, symbols, tools, technologies,actions, interactions, times, places, ways of speaking,listening, writing, reading, feeling, thinking, valuing, etc.(Gee 1998a 15). Our discursive practice involves attempting


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to get other people to recognize people and things as havingcertain meanings and values within certain configurations orrelationships (ibid: 14). Enactive work refers to theseattempts (which, of course, are often unconscious - theycome with recruitment to Discourses -- but can, equally, be

conscious -- as in witting acts of transformative practice).Recognition work refers to the efforts by others to accept orreject such attempts -- to see or fail [refuse] to see thingsour way (ibid: 15).These attempts and recognitions are precisely what produce,sustain, challenge, transform, etc., particular discursiveeffects, including those of particular concern to criticalliteracy theorists and educators: namely, the creation and

maintenance of relations, processes, arrangements, etc.,within which individuals and groups have markedly unequal

access to representational systems and mediational means,linguistic knowledge, cultural artifacts, actualfinancial capital, institutional entry, and status(Muspratt, Freebody and Luke 1997: 2). Enactive andrecognition work is, then, political and ethical. And thestakes of such work are always "up for grabs". Actors,events, activities, practices, and Discourses do not exist inthe world except through active work, work that is very oftenunstable and contested (Gee 1998a: 17).From this standpoint, critical literacy becomes a political

project involving informed enactment and recognition.Employing appropriate techniques of discourse analysis we caninvestigate how language is recruited, in conjunction withother elements, for enactive and recognition work. From this

basis we can engage in our own informed enactments andrecognitions on the basis of our moral and politicalcommitments and our larger sociocultural understanding ofliteracy and Discourse. In the end, it is precisely these

possibilities that underwrite the importance of framingliteracy studies in sociocultural terms -- and fighting forthat framing as enactive work.

ConclusionSocioliteracy studies provides a case of postdisciplinarydevelopment that has helped achieve some important academicadvances. It has provided people working within establishedfields of linguistics and language studies with an important

material focus for ongoing theory development and application:namely, discursively embedded social practices mediated byliteracy -- notably, within diverse educational contexts. Workin linguistics is the richer for this. So is work within the


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academic study of education, which has access to aconsiderably wider range of theoretical, conceptual, andresearch perspectives than previously.In particular, the development of socioliteracy studies has

helped the process of geting educational studies -- inprinciple always a cross disciplinary domain -- out from underthe tyranny of the narrow paradigms of psychology that havedominated educational inquiry throughout this century.Unfortunately, at the points of most practical application --the chalkface -- education remains powerfully in the grip of

psychologistic-technicist policy predilections. Even so,literacy studies in education provides a key battleground fromwhich to continue the struggle against the psychology-technocracy alliance, and to have sociocultural practices

better understood for what they are. This remains our best

hope for contributing academically to the pursuit of morehumane and just agendas for social policy and development.

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