Literacy practices: what theoretical background?

The concept of literacy practices was first coined by Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole (1981) in their landmark study of ‘literacy without schooling’ in a Vai community of Liberia. They defined practice as ‘the carrying out of a goal-directed sequence of activities, using particular technologies and applying particular systems of knowledge’

(Scribner and Cole, 1978: 457). Their understanding of the notion of literacy practices is closely related to Vygotsky’s work (see Section 2.6.1). Combining ethnographic with experimental psychological methods, they explored the uses of literacy outside school contexts. Scribner and Cole (2001) compared how literacy acquired in formal schooling and non-formal contexts could affect cognitive abilities such as communication skills and memory. They did not find significant differences in the cognitive abilities of people considered ‘literate’ and ‘illiterate’. They also found that literacy played an important role amongst Vai people, even if their society was seen as an oral one. They therefore questioned the idea of the ‘Great Divide’ associated with

authors such as Goody and Olsen (see Section 2.1.2). Scribner and Cole (2001) claim that their study ‘indicates that social organisation creates the conditions for a variety of literacy activities, and that different types of text reflect different social practices’

(135). Their study also challenges the idea that dominant literacies (English literacy and literacy acquired at school) are better than vernacular ones (Vai literacy and literacy related to Quranic education). I define these two types of literacies in Section 2.4.

Hull and Schultz (2001) point out that in Scribner and Cole’s notion of practices the focus is mainly on the technologies, abilities, skills, and knowledge involved in recurrent literacy activities. The notion of literacy practices was afterward taken up by NLS researchers who were less interested in these technical aspects. According to Hull and Schultz (2001), ‘in the NLS, […] the focus is clearly on the ways in which activity is infused by ideology, and there is little interest in specifying the cognitive dimensions of social practices’ (588). The concept of literacy practices was notably adopted by Brian Street (1984). According to him, the notion of literacy practices allows researchers to link (observable) literacy events to a broader social context (Street, 2000). The notion was then used by David Barton and Mary Hamilton in the

‘Local Literacy’ study. Barton (1991) explains that ‘literacy practices are the general cultural ways of utilizing literacy that people draw upon in [a] literacy event.’ (5).

Similarly to Street (1984), Barton and Hamilton (1998) also explain that literacy practices, unlike literacy events, are not observable, since they also include elements such as attitudes, emotions, values and social relationships. These elements are partly individual, but Barton and Hamilton highlight that practices are also about ‘social identities’ and ‘ideologies’ (7). Therefore literacy practices are situated between people rather than at an individual level. They also point out that ‘[t]he notion of

literacy practices offers a powerful way of conceptualising the link between the activities of reading and writing and the social structures in which they are embedded and which they help shape’ (Barton and Hamilton, 1998: 6). For instance, we can think about all the forms one has to fill out in order to receive services from the government. These forms use a certain type of language (register), specific terminology and they are structured in a specific way (layout). A number of explicit and implicit expectations come with these forms. These literacies, which can be defined as bureaucratic literacies (also see Section 2.4 about dominant literacies), help shape the ways institutions communicate, process information, make decisions and undertake actions that are of consequence to those who complete the forms.

The notion of literacy practices is now well established in the NLS. However, Street (2000) and Hull and Schultz (2001) observe that authors do not always define it explicitly. Indeed, Street (2000: 17) mentions that the meaning of literacy practices is now ‘taken for granted’. If we look at the ways authors define it (explicitly or not), there is generally not an elaborated definition of how literacies are seen as practices and what exactly practices mean. Authors in the NLS seem to draw on a wide range of social theories in order to conceptualise literacy practices (e.g. Bourdieu (Gee, 2005;

Albright and Luke, 2008), Vygotsky (Scribner and Cole, 1978), Lave and Wenger (see edited book by Barton and Tusting, 2005), Actor Network Theory and Schatzki (see Baynham and Prinsloo, 2009)).

More recent social practice theories should also be explored in relation to literacy studies. For instance, Elisabeth Shove (2009) draws on the work of Schatzki and others. She explains that

practices exist as provisional but recognizable entities composed of also recognizable conventions, images and meanings; materials and forms of

competence. At the same time, if they are to exist at all, practices require active reproduction and performance. In other words, people have to do them.

More than that, it is through these doings that the contours of individual practices are defined, reproduced and constituted. Since people engage in many practices (during a day, a year or a lifetime), any discussion of the temporal texture of daily life has to take account of how practices intersect in time and in space.

Shove’s perspective (2009) on social practices includes some aspects that should be of interest to the NLS: time, materiality, spaces, etc. In her current work, Shove studies consumption practices, design practices, materiality in social practices and also how social practices change over time. She looks at practices over time, across contexts (spaces) and also as they involve different individuals (including their body and mind). I suggest that the dimensions of social practices identified by Shove are also relevant for the study of literacy practices. An example of how these dimensions can matter in social contexts that involve literacy is given by Kell (2006) in her study of a South-African ‘shanty-town’.

In her later work, Kell (2011: 613) makes an important point about the concept of literacy practices. She suggests that researchers should ‘talk about literacy in social practice rather than literacy as social practice’. For example, literacy practices are associated with broader social practices such as counselling practices, teaching practices, social work practices, baking practices, video games practices, shopping practices, and so on. This is an important element in my understanding of literacy practices, which I take into consideration in my analysis.