Discursive constructions of literacies: shifting sands in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Literacy policy and pedagogy in Aotearoa New Zealand have a strong discursive heritage of traditional literacies, which emphasise code breaking and meaning making with linguistic codes and conventions over other possible modes of communication. In a rapidly evolving landscape where changes in communication technologies give birth to new literacies that make use of all the codes we have available for design, we argue teachers need support to augment and (re)conceptualise their literacy conceptions and pedagogy. In this paper we draw on five years of literacy research in Aotearoa New Zealand that supported 34 primary and secondary teachers to critically examine their literacy practices. Foucauldian informed discourse analysis of interview transcripts identified slight shifts in literacy practices, overshadowed by a spectre of accountability that impeded large-scale shift. This work highlights the difficulty of supporting and sustaining change given the global landscape of policy discourses accentuating accountability.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiliteracies
• discourse
• change
• accountability
• literacy policy
• Foucault

Acknowledgements

We also wish to acknowledge the thoughtful reviewers who engaged with this paper and our colleague Karen Nairn for her critical feedback on earlier versions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Intermediate schools cover years seven and eight (ages 10–13).

2 HyperRESEARCH is a qualitative data analysis software programme. See http://www.researchware.com/products/hyperresearch.html for more information.

3 The term ‘overall teacher judgments’ (OTJs) refers to teachers drawing upon evidence to determine how a student is performing against the standards (Ministry of Education, 2009).

4 Excellence is the highest endorsement a student can receive (Madjar & McKinley, 2011).

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to acknowledge the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative for funding the three projects discussed in this paper.