New literacies as multiply placed practices: expanding perspectives on young people's literacies across home and school

Abstract

The home–school mismatch hypothesis has played an important part in sociocultural studies of literacy and schooling since the 1970s. In this paper, we explore how this now classic literacy thesis has developed a new life in studies of digital media and electronic communications with regards to young people and schools, what we call the new home–school mismatch hypothesis or new literacy thesis. We report on two studies, one conducted in Australia and the other in Greece, that worked with 14–16-year-old young people to explore the relationships between their use of digital media in- and out-of-school. Our analysis suggests that the relationship between literacy and digital media use in and outside of school is more complex than is often presented in media commentary and in research and points to the need for more careful consideration of the relationship between school and out-of-school practice and knowledge.

Keywords:

• new literacies
• digital literacies
• adolescents
• school
• home

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Jennifer Rowsell, Mastin Prinsloo and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. We understand discourses (with a lower case ‘d’) as ‘different ways of representing aspects of the world’, following Fairclough (2003, 215). We understand Discourse/s (with an upper case ‘D’) as ways of being, following Gee (1996, 2005).