Literacy

De Castell and Luke's (1983) assertion that "being literate has always referred to having mastery over the processes by means of which culturally significant information is coded" (p. 159) is important for educational practices aimed at advancing literacy because it recognizes the cultural, or social, significance of literacy instruction. De castell and Luke's (1983) view of "being literate" unites the concepts of literacy, education, and culture in the following manner: literacy is advanced through education in accordance with a prescribed social agenda; to remove efforts at literacy instruction from a social context is to deny the social significance behind what it means to be literate in any culture.

Selections from the "Symposium on Literacy, Reading, and Power" (1987) provide a myriad of viewpoints by which to establish the relationships between literacy, education, and culture. Some of the viewpoints expressed acknowledge that literacy instruction is inseparable from its cultural, or social, context, while other theoretical stances maintain that literacy instruction is an autonomous "good" having a positive, transforming effect on culture. In other words, in the second view, literacy is intrinsically good, because advances of civilization follow from increasing levels of literacy. However, as an objective view of the world shows, increasing levels of world-wide literacy have done nothing to make the world a more civilized place.

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cultural contexts. The very fact that this essay is being written in standard English is proof of this fact. There are many other dialects that could have been chosen, but a standard English one prevails. More will be said about textual social agendas later. For now it will be beneficial to return to the "Symposium on Literacy, Reading, and Power," for more ideas on the interrelationships between literacy, culture, and eduction. The introductory questions relative to literacy, culture, and education in the preface to the symposium presuppose a real schism in theoretical approaches to the overall literacy question. As the preface asks, "Is it the fact of writing by itself that effects change in, for example, world view, literary style, political organization, religious outlook, or the mental process of education? Or is the technology of literacy less important than the context in which it is embedded? In the latter case, writing is seen as an ambiguous tool, perhaps subject to manipulation by state power; in the former, literacy is a relative constant, a reliable technology of reason" (1988, p. 193). A look at one of the effects of the technology of writing, religious outlook, will show that religious text, deeply embedded

Category: Psychology - L