Focus on the power dimensions of an adult’s literacy-related practices
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11423894 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Charline Vautour (Independent Researcher, Moncton, Canada, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 379-392 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Lifelong Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0260-1370 • E-ISSN: 1464-519X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02601370.2019.1574924 |
| OpenAlex | W2912064669 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
This paper focuses on the power dimension of social practices. The study sought to understand the literacy-related practices of a retired woman without a high-school diploma in everyday life and community activities. It drew on social practice theories, the New Literacy Studies, and transformative learning. The ethnographic approach chosen to provide a thick description of practices, involving participant observation and interviews, allowed the power dimension to surface. The study contributed an in-depth analysis of the singular experience of an adult faced with literacy challenges in power-embedded contexts, as defined in three main findings. First, it revealed unexpected empowering achievements from an adult with little formal education not usually captured in standardised evaluations. Second, it outlined three intermingled practice categories that evolved during a lifelong project: resourceful literacy, self-directed learning, and ambivalent participation in the community. Third, the participant’s ambivalence provided a strong means to uncover the power dimension of social practices in the form of a dialectic between solidarity and domination relationships. Experiences of solidarity encouraging participation in literacy, learning, and community activities and of domination inhibiting participation are described. Implications point to emancipatory approaches in adult literacy, learning, and education, as well as prior learning recognition
Adult education · Ambivalence · Critical literacy · Ethnography · Lifelong learning · Literacy · Participant observation · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social practice · Social science · Sociology · Solidarity · Transformative learning · Adult and Continuing Education Topics · Education Systems and Policy · Higher Education Learning Practices · Psychology · Social Psychology
Local Literacies
OECD Skills Outlook 2013
The Politics of Education
The Interpretation of Cultures
Tales of the Field
A Primer on Practices
Ethnography
Literacy mediation as a form of powerful literacies in community-based organisations working with young people in a situation of precarity
J’arrête ou tu continues? L’ambivalence intergénérationnelle lors du passage des 16-25 ans à la formation générale des adultes
Challenging change
Creative ageing? Selfhood, temporality and the older adult learner
To what extent do discipline, knowledge domain and curriculum affect the feasibility of the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in higher education
The Politics of Education
The Social Construction of What
Perspective Transformation
La littératie
What no bedtime story means
Field Theory and Experiment in Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |