Adult Literacy as a catalyst for empowerment

Drawing upon sociological and philosophical lenses in this contribution to the volume, we will explore the context of adult literacy as a catalyst for empowerment, and the ways in which we both navigate, and construct, our relationship to the world through language. We argue that it is vital for literacy researchers and educators to understand how classroom practices and discourses shape meaning in ways that have historically tended to promote the social reproduction of inequality. Sociologists such as Bourdieu, and linguists such as Barton and Hamilton, argue that meanings are constructed through social languages or discourse. These socially constructed meanings are not neutral, and often privilege some, while marginalising or excluding others.

However, it is not enough for researchers to adopt a critical approach, and thereby simply to probe the role of practices and discourse in social reproduction. As educational and literacy researchers, and in the face of increasing inequity in and out of the classroom, we feel compelled to take action and explore and expose oppressive discursive structures and practices and in turn offer more empowering and creative engagements with students both in and out of the classroom. Such action opens the possibilities for a radical re-thinking of our relationship as humans to language, for how we encounter others through it, and so for what it means to be literate. It is this kind of action that is an enacting of hope for the global community of language users. Through careful attention to the insights that engagement with empirical data, theory and philosophy in relation to language and literacy can offer, we provide a richly nuanced and compelling account which challenges both researchers and practitioners in the field.