The Social Uses of Literacy: Theory and Practice in Contemporary South Africa challenges state-driven policy and provision in South Africa around the construction of a national delivery system for adult literacy that is part of a programme for Adult Basic Education. The implication is that many people who are the target of this system will be unwilling to participate at the entry point of literacy acquisition unless a reconceptualisation of the nature of literacy use by adults is made. Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material, this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy, and about adult education. Above all, it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so called 'illiterate' people already use reading, writing and numeracy in their everyday lives.

This book details the findings of a research project investigating the social uses of literacy in a range of contexts in South Africa. This approach treats literacy not simply as a set of technical skills learnt in formal education, but as social practices embedded in specific contexts, discourses and positions. What this means is made clear through a series of fine-grained accounts of social uses and meanings of literacy in contexts ranging from the taxi industry in Cape Town, to family farms, urban settlements and displacement sites, rural land holdings, and various sites during the 1994 elections, and among different sectors of South African society, Black, Colored and White. Since the view of literacy presented here is so dependent on context, the book provides not only descriptions of literacy practices but also rich insights into the complexity of everyday social life in contemporary South Africa at a major point of transition. It can be read as a concrete way of understanding the emergence of the New South Africa as it appears to actors on the ground, focused through attention to one central feature of contemporary life — the uses and meanings of literacy. “Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material, this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy, and about adult education. Above all, it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so called ‘illiterate’ people already use reading, writing and numeracy in their everyday lives.” Jenny Maybin, The Open University, Milton Keynes

The idea behind this book is that in complex societies like our own there are different worlds of literacy that exist side by side. People belong to different cultural groups: we lead different lives, we read and write different things in different ways and for different purposes. The idea that literacy is embedded in social context, that there are different literacies, is now accepted. This book presents a range of case studies describing some of these worlds of literacy and is carefully organised by theme, so as to bring out both the differences and connections between them. It will be a source book for students on courses of literacy studies. The case studies span the whole age range, but the book focuses particularly on the variety of uses of literacy in adult life, both inside and outside of formal education. The authors argue that in order to understand literacy and help people learn to read and write, we must look beyond school to the everyday uses of written communication. The contributors come from diverse backgrounds: they include students and teachers in adult basic education, higher education and schools: others are community publishers and researchers, several of whom are internationally known. They share a commitment to plain, accessible language. The book is extensively illustrated and 'sign-posted' to enable readers to move easily between case studies and themes. This makes it a book to dip into which can also be enjoyed by anyone concerned with the role of written communication in education and society as a whole. The themes that are dealt with include different voices, literacy and identity, the role of literacy in making choices and change, collaborative writing and creating new forms of written expression; gender and literacy, bilingual literacy, spoken and written language, children and adult learners, public and private uses of literacy, and bureaucratic literacy.

Social Literacies develops new and critical approaches to the understanding of literacy in an international perspective. It represents part of the current trend towards a broader consideration of literacy as social practices, and as its title suggests, it focuses on the social nature of reading and writing and the multiple character of literacy practices.

Tracing the evolution of the library as a modern institution from the late eighteenth century to the digital era, this book explores the diverse practices by which Americans have shared reading matter for instruction, edification, and pleasure. Writing from a rich variety of perspectives, the contributors raise important questions about the material forms and social shapes of American culture. What is a library? How have libraries fostered communities of readers and influenced the practice of reading in particular communities? How did the development of modern libraries alter the boundaries of individual and social experience, and define new kinds of public culture? To what extent have libraries served as commercial enterprises, as centers of power, and as places of empowerment for African Americans, women, and ...

This volume demonstrates how literacy is more than learning to read and write. Literacy creates communities, organizes personal and social lives, makes possible civil society and the rule of law, and underwrites the commitment of both modern and developing societies to universal education and ever higher levels of literate competence. Everything that is involved in being and becoming literate is the concern of this interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars.