Learning, literacy and identity: ‘I don’t think I’m a failure any more’

Abstract

The impact of participation in adult literacy programmes on learners’ identities is examined through an interrogation of their past and current experiences and the assessment of the effect of particular pedagogies. The findings show how learners’ positive experiences in their programmes had caused them to re-evaluate their previous understandings and enabled the construction of new identities as people that are able to learn. These changes had come about through the challenging of negative discourses, the creation of new figured worlds and imagined futures, and the use of a learning curriculum where learners’ experiences were utilized as positive resources.

Keywords:

• adult learning
• literacy
• identity