With a radically new perspective on reading, writing and mathematics for adults, this refreshing and challenging book shows how teachers and curriculum developers have much to gain from understanding the role of literacy in learners' lives, bringing in their families, social networks and jobs. Looking at the practicalities of how teachers and students can work with social practice in mind, Adult Literacy as Social Practice is particularly focused on: * how a social theory of literacy and numeracy compares with other theoretical perspectives * how to analyze reading and writing in everyday life using the concepts of social literacy as analytical tools, and what this tells us about learners' teaching needs * what is actually happening in adult basic education and how literacy is really being taught * professional development. With major policy initiatives coming into force, this is the essential guide for teachers and curriculum developers through this area, offering one-stop coverage of the key concepts without the need for finding materials from far-scattered sources.

The editors discuss the transformative possibilities of literacy through a collection of 12 articles originally published in Primary Voices K-6. Based on a view of literacy as social practice, this book highlights the ways in which classroom teachers and educators have practiced and imagined teaching literacy in everyday classrooms. The twelve essays published here originally appeared in the NCTE journal Primary Voices K-6 and highlight four key issues essential to literacy practice in elementary classrooms: access, meaning making, inquiry, and transformation. The individual essays challenge us to go beyond a view of literacy as a simple matter of skill and help to realize its transformative power. In providing a contemporary conceptual framework and further resources, the editors have looked not only back to Primary Voices K-6 but also forward, noting that the practices reported in the book represent only the tip of what is possible and including throughout the volume discussions of what the future might look like and how particular sets of social practices might mature and evolve.

Compiled for use in the Open University MA course E825. The 15 articles sample the ideas over the past decade on the importance of social factors in language and literacy development. They include theoretical and ethnographic accounts, cross-cultural and historical perspectives, and explorations of the political aspects and the discourses within which language and literacy are discussed. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Moving beyond current theories on literacy practices, this edited collection sheds new light on the complexities inherent to the social, cultural, and ideological contexts in which literacy practices are realized. Building on Brian V. Street¿s scholarship, contributors discuss literacy as intrinsically social and ideological, and examine how the theorizing of literacy practices has evolved in recognition of the diverse contexts in which written language is used. Breaking new intellectual and theoretical ground, this book brings together leading literacy scholars to re-examine how educational and sociocultural contexts frame and define literacy events and practices. Drawing from the richness of Brian V. Street¿s work, this volume offers insights into fractures, tensions, and developments in literacy for scholars, students, and researchers.

This volume presents case studies of literacy practices as shaped by culture, language, community, and power. Covering a range of contexts and exploring a number of relevant dimensions in the evolving picture of literacy as situated, multiple, and social, the studies are grouped around four overarching themes: *Language, Literacy, and Hegemony; *The Immigrant Experience: Language, Literacies, and Identities; *Literacies In-/Out-of-School and On the Borders; and *New Pedagogies for New Literacies. It is now generally recognized that literacy is multiple and woven within the sociocultural lives of communities, but what is not yet fully understood is how it is multiple--how this multiplicity plays out across and within differing sociocultural contexts. Such understanding is critical for crafting school literacy practices in response to the different literacy sets brought to school by different learners. Toward this end it is necessary to know what those sets are composed of. Each of the case studies contributes to building this knowledge in new and interesting ways. As a whole the book provides a rich and complex portrait of literacy-in-use. Cultural Practices of Literacy: Case Studies of Language, Literacy, Social Practice, and Power advances sociocultural research and theory pertaining to literacy development as it occurs across school and community boundaries and cultural contexts and in and out of school. It is intended for researchers, students, professionals across the field of literacy studies and schooling, including specialists in family literacy, community literacy, adult literacy, critical language studies, multiliteracies, youth literacy, international education, English as a second language, language and social policy, and global literacy.

In this unique book the author shows that teaching staff have much to gain from understanding the role of literacy in learners' lives, focusing on the practicalities of how teachers and students can work from a social practice perspective.

Learning takes place both inside and outside of the classroom, embedded in local practices, traditions and interactions. But whereas the importance of social practice is increasingly recognised in literacy education, Numeracy as Social Practice: Global and Local Perspectives is the first book to fully explore these principles in the context of numeracy. The book brings together a wide range of accounts and studies from around the world to build a picture of the challenges and benefits of seeing numeracy as social practice ̶ that is, as mathematical activities embedded in the social, cultural, historical and political contexts in which these activities take place. Drawing on workplace, community and classroom contexts, Numeracy as Social Practice shows how everyday numeracy practices can be used in formal and non-formal maths teaching and how, in turn, classroom teaching can help to validate and strengthen local numeracy practices. At a time when an increasingly transnational approach is taken to education policy making, this book will appeal to development practitioners and researchers, and adult education, mathematics and numeracy teachers, researchers and policy makers around the world.

This book will help those who plan and develop literacy initiatives; using case studies from literacy programmes in many countries including Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mali, Nigeria, the Philippines and Uganda, it demonstrates the importance of literacy, its power to improve lives, and the role literacy plays in social and economic development.

Providing an overview of contemporary research into early childhood literacy, this handbook deals with subjects related to nature, function and use of literacy and the development, learning and teaching of literacy in early childhood.

This is a varied collection of key writings from leading international scholars in the field of literacy. It makes a timely and important contribution to literary practices - essential reading for anyone involved in literary education.