Reading, writing, resonating: striking chords across the contexts of students’ everyday and college lives

Abstract

This paper draws on data from an Economic and Social Research Council‐funded research project on literacies in the context of further education in the UK. Taking a social view of reading and writing moves us away from seeing literacy (singular) as a universal set of transferable skills towards seeing literacies (plural) as emergent practices found in social settings. Taking a situated, socio‐cultural approach also leads us to notice how contexts and practice co‐emerge. The research project we document sought to inquire into the interface between literacies in students’ everyday lives and their formal college coursework. Findings indicate that if contexts and their associated literacies are co‐emergent and co‐determined by each other, then literacy skills do not simply ‘transfer’ between contexts but are better seen as resonant across contexts through the manner in which discrete aspects of literacy practices relate. We conclude by delineating some strategies for enacting a critical, situated‐yet‐polycontextual literacy pedagogy that pays respect to students’ everyday literacies as a valuable resource base in formal coursework.

Keywords:

• literacy
• new literacy studies
• further education
• reading
• writing
• critical pedagogy

Acknowledgements

This article arises from work done within the Literacies for Learning in Further Education research project, funded by the UK’s ESRC‐funded Teaching and Learning Research Programme (grant number RES 139‐25‐0117). Thanks are due to other members of the research team for supporting the development of the ideas herein. See www.lancs.ac.uk/lflfe for further details. We are also grateful for the comments made by two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. The further education sector in Scotland is a key provider of post‐school, vocationally oriented lifelong learning with over 21,000 staff and about half a million student enrolments at both further and higher levels.