45 review for Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education

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   Michael – Jun 05, 2010

   In Social Literacies (1995), Brian Street situations his argument about literacies as "in a transitional phrase" in which literacy scholars are beginning to understand literacy as a social practice and understand cross--cultural perspectives (2). Throughout his book, he stresses the social nature, as opposed to the autonomous, skills-oriented perspective, of literacy, and that there are multiple literacies that are practiced in real contexts. He complicates the notion of the literate/illiterate In Social Literacies (1995), Brian Street situations his argument about literacies as "in a transitional phrase" in which literacy scholars are beginning to understand literacy as a social practice and understand cross--cultural perspectives (2). Throughout his book, he stresses the social nature, as opposed to the autonomous, skills-oriented perspective, of literacy, and that there are multiple literacies that are practiced in real contexts. He complicates the notion of the literate/illiterate binary, noting that one of the biggest problems may be the stigma surrounding "illiteracy" that people attribute to others and that people begin to understand themselves as having (14, 19). We should reject the "great divide" theory of literacy (21). Street proposes an "ideological" model of literacy, which "forces one to be more wary of grand generalizations and cherished assumptions about literacy 'in itself'" (29). He thus critiques anthropological models of literacy study that equate literacy with progress or with certain types of knowledge or thinking, like logic, rationality, and objectivity (74-76). (This relates to his critique of Walter Ong in Chapter 7.) He also explains that there are multiple, contextual literacies, and one problem we have is "the 'pedagogization' of literacy" wherein literacy becomes equated with school literacy (107). Because of the problems of using terms like "standard" literacies (which might imply that they are norms), Street proposes "dominant literacies, in opposition to 'marginalized' literacies" (135). 

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   Michele –

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   Penny –

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   Vincent –

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   Vanessa Barcelos –

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   Chris Parsons –

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   Natália Gomes –

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   Stephanie –

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   Sabine Mendes Moura –

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    J.D. DeHart –

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    Jennifer Nichols –

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    Tracey –

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    Heidi Willers –

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    Sue –

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    Kara Poe Alexander –

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    Larisse Oliveira –

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    Frank –

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    Ritam Dutta –

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    Semi-Academic Eric –

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    Kim –

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    Julie Hunter Boone –

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    Wajiha Labar –

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    Ludovic Levasseur –

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    Michael –

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    Shawn Mitchell –

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    Ceci –