1st Edition

Literacy and the Politics of Representation

By Mary Hamilton Copyright 2012
192 Pages
by Routledge

192 Pages
by Routledge

192 Pages
by Routledge

Literacy is a key indicator for comparing individuals and nations in contemporary society. It is central to public debates about the nature of the public sphere, economic markets, citizenship and self-governance. Literacy and the Politics of Representation aims to uncover the constructed nature of public understandings of literacy by examining detailed examples of how literacy is represented... Read more

1. Introduction Part I: Constructing Imaginaries Using Different Semiotic Resources 2. Literacy by Numbers 3. Visualising Literacy 4. The Powers of Voice Part II Domains of Imagination 5. Governing Literacy 6. Literacy in the News 7. Speaking from Experience 8. Conclusion

Biography

Mary Hamilton is Professor of Adult Learning and Literacy, co-director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning and Associate Director of the Literacy Research Centre at Lancaster University, UK.

She has written extensively on policy, practice and everyday learning in adult literacy and is co-author of a number of books including Local Literacies (reissued 2012, Routledge); Powerful Literacies (with Jim Crowther and Lynn Tett) and Changing Faces of Adult Literacy, Language and Numeracy: A Critical History (with Yvonne Hillier).

'Mary Hamilton brings to the project of refining our understanding of literacy and challenging simplistic assumptions, her own deeper analysis of policy, her experience of teaching and learning practices in adult literacy in the UK and also her study of popular  media representations of literacy. Essential reading not only for those still bound up in the popular imagination about literacy but also for those who have been working in the field but can still benefit from such an account by  a seasoned writer capable of bringing together different fields, different theories, different ‘discourses of the imagination’.'

Brian Street, Emeritus Professor, King's College London, UK