Multiple,relational and emotional mobilities: Understanding student mobilities in higher education as more than ‘staying local’ and ‘going away’

This paper advances theorising around student geographies in higher education (HE). It extends recent work, which has problematised the primacy of social class and binary thinking about student mobilities, and presents local/non‐local experiences and im/mobility as a defining dualism. Drawing on a qualitative longitudinal study of women's experiences during and on completion of HE, the following explores the ways in which a more diverse and constantly negotiated set of mobility practices emerge relationally, in the stratified field of HE, and through shifting personal and emotional attachments. Theoretically, the paper develops a new approach to student mobilities, synthesising dominant Bourdieusian notions of field with relational theories pertaining to mobilities (e.g. Adey, 2009), emotion (e.g. Holmes, 2010) and personal life (e.g. Mason, 2004; Smart, 2007). Such an approach makes it possible to move beyond the binary thinking that has become entrenched in policy and academic debates about student mobilities, and recognise a broader range of movements, flows, stops and starts that emerge relationally, emotionally and temporally as students and graduates move into and through HE. It is argued here that, given the policy emphasis on accelerated and flexible HE provision (BIS, 2016), a gradational view of student mobilities is more important than ever.     

Not just ‘sunny days’: Aboriginal students connect out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices

In this paper, I report on a school‐university collaborative research project that investigated which practices and knowledges of Canadian Aboriginal students not acknowledged in school may provide these students with access to school literacy practices. The study, which took place in a small city in Western Canada, examined ways to merge the out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices for minority language learners who struggle with academic literacies. Drawing on the third space theory, in conjunction with the concept of “funds of knowledge,” I explain how students' linguistic and cultural resources from home and community networks were utilised to reshape school literacy practices through their involvement in the Heritage Fair programme. I analyse a representative case study of Darius, a 10‐year‐old boy who explored his familial hunting practices for his Heritage Fair project. This illustrative exemplar, “Not just sunny days,” highlights the ways in which children's out‐of‐school lives can be used as a scaffold for literacy learning. In conclusion, I discuss implications for educators and researchers working to improve literacy learning for minority students by connecting school learning to children's out‐of‐school learning.     

‘Learning Careers’ or ‘Assessment Careers’? The Impact of Assessment Systems on Learning

Two increasingly important strands in current educational thinking are reflected in growing interest amongst researchers, policy‐makers and qualification designers in formative assessment strategies that motivate learners and enhance their educational attainment. In addition, a body of research suggests that learners develop ‘learning careers’ from primary education, through the National Curriculum into post‐compulsory education and beyond. This article engages with this work in order to highlight some key factors in ‘learning careers’, particularly in relation to the impact of formative assessment practices. It aims to relate findings from research on formative assessment in primary and further education, carried out by the authors, to studies which use Bourdieu's notions of ‘habitus’, ‘field’, ‘cultural capital’ and ‘social capital’ to explore learning careers and learning identities in different sectors of education. The article evaluates whether the concept of ‘assessment careers’ illuminates a specific strand within young people's ‘learning careers’. In particular, it asks whether the concept might offer more precise insights about how practices produced by different assessment systems, particularly those purporting to promote formative assessment, affect learners' identities and dispositions for learning.     

‘Letting the Story Out’: Visual Encounters with Anthony Browne’s The Tunnel

Since the introduction of the term ‘visual literacy’ at the end of the 1960s, the debate about its meaning and uses has paralleled that of the term ‘literacy’. These debates have resulted in a theoretical move from a consideration of literacy as a mechanical act in which the subject is a passive decoder of the most superficial meaning of a text, to the idea of literacies as meaning‐making practices in which the social subject actively involves previous knowledge of self and of the world. In practice however, this move has usually not been taken into account in the world of education where literacy is usually seen as the functional basis of the curriculum and visual literacy skills are virtually neglected – despite the fact that never before have children been surrounded by so much visual information. This article describes part of a study of children’s responses to picturebooks which aimed to learn how visual literacy can expand children’s cognitive abilities and enhance their wonder and enjoyment of such complex texts. The work here focuses on responses to The Tunnel by Anthony Browne by children of different ages and from different schools. All of them showed deep intellectual and emotional engagement with the visual narrative.     

Intra‐activity of humans and nonhumans in Writers' Studio: (re)imagining and (re)defining ‘social’

Posthumanism, or the material turn, refuses to take the distinction between human and nonhuman for granted. Currently discourses in literacy education focus on the ways of incorporating new tools and technologies (products) but within a design perspective, which does not get at the social and participatory ways (processes) of students creating new relationships and realities with materials. A posthuman stance focuses on the processes of literacy artefacts coming into being and what is being produced in the process(es). The social is (re)imagined and (re)defined in processes that encompass social entanglements of humans/nonhuman materials creating newness, new realities. We put to work posthumanist concepts with data that we call the ‘solar system mural assemblage’ from a 7‐ to 8‐year‐old Writers' Studio in order to (re)imagine and (re)define social. We question what counts as ‘social’ when working from a posthumanist stance. Why does a ‘posthumanist social’ matter for literacy educators? How does this perspective not only change our research practices but also pedagogies? We wonder how literacies are produced – how realities come into being – in assemblages of human and nonhuman materials in Writers' Studio. We discuss how and why it matters that we (re)conceptualise the notion of social in literacy education by drawing on posthumanist views.     

Dyslexics in time machines and alternate realities: thought experiments on the existence of dyslexics, ‘dyslexia’ and ‘Lexism’

This article explores the possibility that ‘dyslexics’ can be thought of as being ‘othered’ and defined by the social norms and educational practices surrounding literacy; which can be termed ‘Lexism’. As such the author, Craig Collinson, a postgraduate academic support officer at Edge Hill University, presents ‘Lexism’ as a new concept that allows us to reconsider how dyslexics can be said to exist. In a persuasive and original article, Craig argues that dyslexics can be defined by the existence of Lexism rather than the more problematic concept of ‘dyslexia’. He seeks to achieve these ends through a series of thought experiments which suggest a different way of looking at what defines someone as dyslexic in order to suggest that when we talk of the inclusion or exclusion of dyslexic pupils we should be aware of the influence Lexism may have upon us.     

“How people read and write and they don't even notice”: everyday lives and literacies on a Midlands council estate

This article presents data from a British Academy‐funded study of the everyday literacy practices of three families living on a predominantly white working‐class council housing estate on the edge of a Midlands city. The study explored, as one participant succinctly put it, “how people read and write and they don't even notice”. This alludes to the ways in which everyday practices may not be recognised as part of a dominant model of literacy. The study considered too the ways in which these literacy practices are part of a wider policy context that also fails to notice the impact of austerity politics on everyday lives. An emphasis on quantitative measures of disadvantage and public discourse which vilifies those facing economic challenge can overshadow the resilience and resourcefulness of individuals and families in making meaning from their experiences. Drawing together consideration of everyday lives and the everyday literacies which are part of them, this article explores the impact of the current policy context on access to both economic and cultural resources, showing how literacy, as part of this context, should be recognised as a powerful means not only of constricting lives but also of constructing them.     

The ‘good’ parent in relation to early childhood literacy: symbolic terrain and lived practice

In this paper we consider the place of early childhood literacy in the discursive construction of the identity(ies) of ‘proper’ parents. Our analysis crosses between representations of parenting in texts produced by commercial and government/public institutional interests and the self‐representations of individual parents in interviews with the researchers. The argument is made that there are commonalities and disjunctures in represented and lived parenting identities as they relate to early literacy. In commercial texts that advertise educational and other products, parents are largely absent from representations and the parent's position is one of consumer on behalf of the child. In government‐sanctioned texts, parents are very much present and are positioned as both learners about and important facilitators of early learning when they ‘interact’ with their children around language and books. The problem for which both, in their different ways, offer a solution is the “not‐yet‐ready” child precipitated into the evaluative environment of school without the initial competence seen as necessary to avoid falling behind right from the start. Both kinds of producers promise a smooth induction of children into mainstream literacy and learning practices if the ‘good parent’ plays her/his part. Finally, we use two parent cases to illustrate how parents' lived practice involves multiple discursive practices and identities as they manage young children's literacy and learning in family contexts in which they also need to negotiate relations with their partners and with paid and domestic work.     

Learning How to Learn,Art Education and the ‘Background’

This paper describes the conditions that make learning how to learn in art possible. Rather than privileging risk-taking or the playfulness of primary process thinking, I will use a Wittgensteinian understanding of mind to argue against this approach in favour of one that raises students’ awareness of the cultural and cognitive ‘backgrounds’ (forms of life and language games) against which our individual actions and risks are framed and understood. Instead of building art education on a metaphysical view of the self, this paper will advocate a social constructivist approach to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to create a cognitive map for ‘the background’ of art. When these three are practised in a mutual way they connect individual minds to the resources or mind of culture which, in turn, makes lifelong learning possible, reclaiming the idea of art-for-life’s sake.     

‘Invisible’ teachers of literacy: collusion between siblings and teachers in creating classroom cultures

The promise to raise literacy standards significantly at age 11 in economically disadvantaged areas has been an important part of the present British Government's educational policy. Integral to this promise has been the introduction of official home/school ‘contracts’ or ‘agreements’, which oblige parents to engage in specific literacy activities with their children. However, evidence from a longitudinal study of family literacy practices in East London suggests that family and community members other than parents might play a crucial role in initiating young children into literacy. Siblings particularly have been found to be efficient ‘teachers’ of school literacy practices. In this paper, I investigate particularly ways in which an unspoken collusion takes place between teacher and older sibling revealed during ‘play school’ sessions in Bangladeshi British households in East London.     

‘Why did I do nothing?’ Poetry and the experiences of bilingual pupils in a mainstream inner‐city secondary school

This paper investigates the opportunities for bilingual children to explore and construct literacy practices in an inner‐city secondary school and the relationship of bilingual writers/readers to texts. It seeks to increase our understanding and awareness of bilingual learners from different social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This case study focuses on ‘poetry and the bilingual child’ and examines the language development of two refugee children who came from Afghanistan and Somalia with their families three years ago.     

The social construction of reading strategies: new directions for research

In recent decades reading research has moved from predominantly quantitative work to more qualitative studies in which individual readers are observed in interaction with texts. Considerable differences have been found in the strategies employed by these readers, especially by those of different social and cultural backgrounds. These diverse strategies can be partly attributed to the different processes by which people learn to read and through the different ways in which they see written texts used in their own social environments; the contrasting situations and strategies of Japanese and Nigerian readers are used to illustrate the point. If teachers are to deal effectively with readers of various cultural backgrounds—as they must do in ESL and EFL classes—they need to know more about such contrasts; more work is therefore needed on the relationship between the literacy practices of cultural communities and the reading strategies of particular individuals.     

‘Drawing Out’ ‐ a Humanist Approach to Drawing

Over the past twenty‐five years as an art teacher I have sought answers to three questions: 1. In what ways and to what extent can drawing practice explore both conscious and unconscious thought processes? 2. In what ways can the participant individuate his or her experience through the practice of drawing? 3. In what ways can drawing form a dialogue between personal philosophy and experience? Refering to my own experience and pedagogy I define some of the historical, pschological and philosophical contexts for my perception of drawing, including comments from my students, in the process making no special distinction between child and adult art. I have studied the evolution of pupil’s drawing practices and particularly those of my own children, as they assert their own perceptions and responses to experience, conceptualising feelings both sensuous and emotional through telling stories and defining realities. Throughout history the will to draw has persisted, its function differing and changing through time and cultural contexts. Beuys commented that everyone can be an artist, if they want to be; can anyone really afford not to draw?     

‘Diff‐ability’ not ‘disability’: right‐brained thinkers in a left‐brained education system

This article draws on critical disability studies, challenging the exclusion of right‐brained thinkers from an education system designed to privilege left‐brained thinkers. It focuses on individuals who are labelled dyspraxic, providing data from qualitative interviews with adults about childhood experiences in school and the impact on their emotional well‐being and peer relationships. Utilising Ornstein's pioneering research on the bilateral specialisation of the brain and hemispheric dominance in addition to a critical disability studies theoretical framework, this article innovatively argues that the fact that education in England continues to be delivered in a logical sequential form, even 40 years after Ornstein's work, is systemic discrimination in which dyspraxic children are constructed as ‘deviant’. The article concludes by arguing that individuals with dyspraxia should be seen as having a ‘diff‐ability’ in thinking style rather than a disability and therefore recommends both change and awareness‐raising at institutional level in the education system.     

‘I'm Dylan and I'm not going to say my last name': Some thoughts on childhood,text and new technologies

Discussions of text and the literate practices of the young have always taken place against larger backdrops painted in particular historical, cultural and ideological patterns. In the contemporary era, the emergence of weblogs (blogs) and their rapid uptake by young people all over the world provides an interesting insight into the tensions that emerge as views of children, technology and textual practice intersect in a particular historical, cultural and ideological moment. This article suggests that the emergence of new technologies and new textual practices poses a significant challenge to traditional views of literacy and childhood. It undertakes a textual analysis of samples of the ways in which blogging and bloggers are represented in the media and contrasts these discourses with the production, dissemination and use of blogs created by two young people. This small slice across blogging serves to highlight the deeply rooted tensions between some models of childhood and some contemporary practices around text, technology and information.     

‘A different kind of reading’: the emergent literacy practices of a school‐based graphic novel club

This paper explores the possibilities for pedagogy inherent in the reading practices which emerged from an extra‐curricular graphic novel reading group set up in a Scottish secondary school. The research is presented within the framework of the new literacy studies and its focus on ‘practices’ and ‘events’ but, more specifically, it uses the framework developed by researchers working on the Literacies for Learning in Further Education Project conducted recently in the United Kingdom. This framework allows a more detailed exploration of ‘events’ by unpacking the fine‐grained aspects that compose a literacy practice. This paper aims to identify, trace and analyse the aspects of the emerging new practice of this reading group. While the framework it employs is based on an opposition between curricular and non‐curricular practices, the data presented in this paper derives from an extra‐curricular activity uniquely positioned inside the school but outside of the official curriculum. By focusing on notions of identity and process in particular, the paper presents a critique of the ways in which literacy practices which take place outside of the classroom have been undervalued or ignored by educational policy and practice.     

外国语言教育中的新读写能力研究综述

经济全球化,尤其是文化全球化影响了人们交流和表达意义的方式,这就要求重新认识社会生活中的读写能力和实践。新读写能力研究理论认为读写能力不仅仅是中性的、技术性的认知技巧,更应该是个体参与社会过程中表达和交流的各种符号资源、知识类型和社会实践的综合运用能力。目前,世界多个国家和地区开展了基于新读写能力研究的教学实践活动。     

Writing and writer identity: the poor relation and the search for voice in ‘personal literacy’

The teaching of writing has been a relatively neglected aspect of research in literacy. Cultural and socio‐economic reasons for this are suggested. In addition, teachers often readily acknowledge themselves as readers, but rarely as writers. Without a solid grasp of compositional processes, teachers are perhaps prone to adopt schemes that promote mechanistic writing approaches, which are reinforced by top‐down discourses of literacy. This ‘schooling literacy’ is often at odds with children's lives and their narratives of social being. After discussing theories of writing, tensions between ‘schooling literacy’ and ‘personal literacy’ are debated. It is suggested that the disjuncture of the two exposes gaps that provide teachers with spaces in which to construct a writing curriculum embedded in children's language and funds of knowledge. The elevation of this ‘personal literacy’ is viewed as an imperative to enhance children's identities as writers, as well as their engagement with writing.     

“Beyond the frame”: exploring children’s literacy practices

The aim of this small–scale research project was to examine the literacy events children choose to engage in outside school. Two groups of Primary School children were involved in investigating the use of literacy in their lives, using disposable cameras to record literacy events and texts. The photographs and the discussion stimulated by them provided evidence that these children used literacy in richly diverse ways for purposes which they saw as meaningful. Although limited in size and scope, the study showed that uses of literacy presented by these children reflected community literacy practices (as identified by Barton & Hamilton, 1998). However, it was also clear that the children acted with considerable autonomy, motivation and creativity in making their use of literacy meaningful to them. This paper provides a report on the project and discusses the implications of these findings for the teaching of literacy in school.     

Reading with technology: the new normal

ABSTRACT

Widespread changes in communication associated with new technologies have led to a growing interest in digital literacy. Although the concept of digital literacy suffers from a lack of agreed definition, this paper suggests that reading and writing with technology remains a key point of concern. The written word, a central feature of evolving patterns of communication, is now used in new ways and often in combination with different media as new devices and physical practices are recruited to the task of meaning making. The influence of different ways of thinking about these new communicative practices has led to the development of the diverse body of research outlined here. Tracing these strands in current research and writing about digital practice is used in order to identify how literacy has both expanded and diversified. Because it is now a significant aspect of full participation in social and cultural life, reading with technology raises important questions for education. This paper suggests that in England policy in this area is poorly articulated and argues that there is a pressing need for more focused classroom research to develop practices that support digital literacy.