Literacy education and the construction of identities for the new economy dr. Michaela Tilinca Europ

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Literacy education and the construction of
identities for the new economy
dr.
Michaela TilincaEuropean Literacy Research
MeetingHamburg, 18- 19 February 2008
IREA The Romanian Institute for Adult Education
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The limits of my language mean the limits of my
world. Ludwig
Wittgenstein
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Framing the presentation the aims

• put forward a possible reading of UNESCOs view
  of literacy
• position myself as an Eastern European
  researcher
• share the findings of my research
• present a possible step to further research into
  practice
• identify issues for further discussion

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Framing the presentation an overview

• how I see this presentation
• a kaleidoscope
• a collection of telling cases or snapshots
• a turn in a conversation on literacy
• how I structured this presentation
• I. definitions and views of literacy
• the researcher
• the research
• from RESEARCH to research and practice
• pulling the threads together towards strategies
  and policies

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Starting from definitions
literacy reading, writing and arithmetic litera
cy education enabling individuals to acquire the
skills of decoding and encoding language in
written form 1940s

• literacy
• is about more than reading and writing it is
  about how we communicate in society. It is about
  social practices and relationship, about
  knowledge, language and culture
• literacy education?
• UNESCOs Director Generals Preface
• to 2003 Literacy, a UNESCO perspective

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Starting from definitions

• Paraphrasing Bourdieu (19913)
• who, speaking about power relationship suggests
  that
• we have to be able to discover it in places where
  it is least visible, where it is most completely
  misrecognised and thus in fact, recognized
• while keeping in mind the millions who have
  reading and writing problems in the world today,
  we have to remind ourselves to look at literacy
  issues where these are less/least visible, too,
  since they are no less dangerous

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Myself as a researcher one telling case or
positioning myself

• research as lifelong learning
• doing research as adult education
• relationships that enhance research
• literacy and literacy research in an Eastern
  European country
• 18th 19th centuries the ethos of learning
  in Central Europe
• the communist era
• 21st century what now?
• the loneliness of the long distance runner
• communities of practice
• quality assurance in researching literacy

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Myself as a researcher one telling case or
positioning myself
literacy and literacy research in an Eastern
European country Milan Kunderas now famous
statement which says that Central Europe refers
to that part of Europe geographically situated in
the Centre, culturally situated in the West and
politically situated in the East Kundera,
1997222
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Work in the context of new economy is
workers have to do things workers have to
interact within professional networks workers
have to talk and listen to negotiate
tasks workers have to read and write texts in
order to perform work tasks and to accomplish
organisational routines workers have to produce
new knowledge to stay competitive workers have
to interpret and re-contextualise info
workers have to position themselves as
flexible and able to manage themselves or new
situations
material relationship talk text mediated
knowledge information identity
list based on presentation by H. Scherees,May
2006, Changing literacies in the knowledge based
economy workshop at Institute of Advanced
Studies, Lancaster Univ.
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Literacy in the context of new economy is about
material context roles participation
relationship identity voice texts
talk about/around texts diverse
media approaches to knowledge
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My research another telling case

• Academic Literacy and the Construction of
  Symbolic Power A study of one academic community
• investigation of academic literacy in
  relationship with the mechanisms of social power,
• at the cross roads between social sciences and
  linguistics in which discourse and literacy are
  seen as a part of a wider set of social
  practices in a situated context
• a transdisciplinary examination of the
  relationship between academic literacy and
  symbolic power in which I explore
• research generated data to understand how
  students participate in the academic literacy
  practices and
• (ii) course generated data to understand how
  students participate in genres.
• I argue that literacy practices and texts as
  symbolic (literacy) resources institutionally
  available position students as disempowered and I
  show that the articulation of literacy practices
  around privileged genres and the linguistic
  participation of students in these genres is
  limited

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The research a study of academic literacy
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The research a study of academic literacy
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The research a study of academic literacy
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The research a study of academic literacy
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The research a study of academic literacy
findings

• UNESCO vision of literacy (2003 brochure)
• people using written communication in ways that
  strengthen their place in society, give
  expression to their identity, facilitate
  learning, and enable open and respectful dialogue
  with neighbours of the local village and of the
  global village. This calls for self sustaining,
  interlocking, multiple literate environments in
  which everyone can participate and leading to
• literacy for democratic participation voice for
  all
• literacy for fulfilling potential learning for
  all
• literacy for expression and sharing of identity
  and knowledge creative and reciprocal
  literacies

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From RESEARCH into research and practice project
work

• project frames
• e.g. the EU LLL programmes
• key themes
• the new economy

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From RESEARCH into research and practice CELiNE

• Content Embedded Literacy Education for the new
  economy
• RESEARCH research practice
• partnerships academic education vocational
  training
• breaking the comfort zone
• conceptions of teaching literacy
• literacy programmes seeing beyond content

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From RESEARCH into research and practice a 3rd
telling case
the worker who uses this welding machine
needs just to dust and polish it a teacher in
an adult VET class
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Pulling the threads together issues for further
discussion

• Definitions gt
• dialogue among different literacies
• dialogue about literacy with all social actors
  involved (outside research community)
• multi dimensional cooperation
• situated literacy and local context
• bridging the digital divide

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Pulling the threads together issues for further
discussion

• Researchers and research gt
• continuing efforts to create/develop
  opportunities and forums for researchers to share
  their work
• work toward maintaining and developing the
  database of good practices at all levels
• continue to strengthen cooperation between
  research, policy and decision makers and
  community (individuals, private sector, NGOs and
  civil society)

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Pulling the threads together issues for further
discussion

• Teaching literacy gt
• work towards developing and implementing
  courses, programmes and degrees to foster the
  necessary competences research and literacy
• consider embedding as a possible option
• consider awareness raising as a possible
  option
• thinking of literacy programmes beyond just
  content

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Pulling the threads together issues for further
discussion

• RESEARCH into policies, strategies, practices gt
• project work is a further step between RESEARCH
  and strategies and policies
• including literacy issues among objectives and
  themes of EU and other call for project proposals
• finding relevant discourse and telling cases
  when addressing policy and decision makers
• enhancing national strategies through community
  decisions