PRESENTING SUPERB RESEARCH THAT ADVANCES THE FIELD OF EDUCATION
Literacy and Life
Serendipity, Generosity, and Goodwill in the Academic Study of Literacy as Social Practices
- Publisher
Myers Education Press - ISBN 9781975507138
- Language English
- Pages 175 pp.
- Size 6" x 9"
- Request Exam Copy
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- Publisher
Myers Education Press - ISBN 9781975507152
- Language English
- Pages 175 pp.
- Size 6" x 9"
- Request E-Exam Copy
Literacy and Life: Serendipity, Generosity, and Goodwill in the Academic Study of Literacy as Social Practices is a retrospective account of a serendipitous academic life that unfolded over 40 years as an organic interplay of fortunate happenstance, regular acts of collegial kindness, and a personal disposition to spontaneously follow ideas, events, and arguments wherever they led.
Early chapters explore how a chance encounter with Space Invaders players inspired an initial interest in literacy as a phenomenon, and how the work of Paulo Freire led to considering functional literacy and critical literacy as a social praxis. Middle chapters describe how experiences of literacy and everyday life in a rural Nicaraguan village, and exploring literacy in the context of the ‘new capitalism’ of the 1990s, led to multiple rethinkings of critical literacy. Later chapters trace work done over more than 20 years with Michele Knobel around their shared interests in “new literacies” and pedagogical approaches to enhancing teacher research literacy.
Literacy and Life celebrates rich experiences of collegiality and goodwill throughout an entire trajectory of thinking, researching, writing, and teaching about literacy as social practices. Each chapter describes how the author’s activity and endeavor were mediated and powerfully enabled by generosity, collaborative support, sharing, and trust on the part of many people, from many different walks of life in many different countries. Literacy and Life bears witness to a life blessed with everyday experiences where beneficence was very much an enabling and personally liberating norm.
Perfect for courses such as: Literacy in Society; Literacy as Social Practice; Literacy Education: Research, Practice, Policy and Politics; Contemporary Literacies; Literature/Composition courses on Memoir; Approaches to Teaching and Learning in a Complex World; Thinking, Learning and Reflective Practice (Philosophy)
Foreword James Paul Gee
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Bibliography
Index
NOTE: Table of Contents subject to change up until publication date.
Colin Lankshear
Colin Lankshear is an independent educational researcher, writer, and teacher based in Mexico, where he has lived primarily since 1999. He is currently an adjunct professor at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. Lankshear worked in the Education Department of the Faculty of Arts at Auckland University, New Zealand between 1976 and 1991, where he first became interested in literacy and found a research ‘home’ in the new literacy studies. From 1993 to 1998, Lankshear was a professor and research director at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He was a Heritage Fellow of the Mexican Council of Sciences and Technologies during 2000 and 2001, and subsequently held part-time visiting scholar and professorial research fellow positions in Australian and Canadian universities.
He has published works individually and collaboratively on wide ranging aspects of literacies as social practices within school, communities, workplaces, and online environments. For over 20 years, Lankshear researched and published with Michele Knobel in the area of new literacies. He continues to teach on a contract-by-contract basis in a masters of education literacy specialism at Mount Saint Vincent University. In his spare time, he enjoys riding motorcycles and producing coffee by hand from beans grown on an acre of land on the outskirts of Coatepec, Veracruz, the “coffee capital” of Mexico.
His books include Literacy, Schooling and Revolution; Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis and the Postmodern (edited with Peter McLaren); The New Work Order; Behind the Language of the New Capitalism (with James Paul Gee and Glynda Hull); Changing Literacies; Teachers and Technoliteracy (with Ilana Snyder and Bill Green); A Handbook for Teacher Research (with Michele Knobel); New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning (with Michele Knobel); and Data Analysis, Interpretation and Theory in Literacy Studies Research (edited with Michele Knobel and Judy Kalman).