Session Information
13 SES 04 B, Language, Concepts and Translation
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper explores the conceptualisation of literacy as it shifts between Anglo- American and Continental traditions of Pedagogy. The main question addressed in this paper is what happens with an important dimension of education, that of ’subjectification’, when a concept from one tradition is introduced into the other? Literacy is one of the key terms in the processes of globalisation in education. The dominant understanding of literacy as a universal competence within international measurements and comparisons is making its way into the local policies and curriculum. Not only is literacy a concept that always holds an implicit normative or ideological agenda, it also directs a wide array of educational practices that can interfere with local purposes and practices of education if unreflected. Hence this research looks into the theoretical and practical silences that occur when the concept of literacy travels from one context to another.
The paper has three parts. First, it maps the main dimensions of conceptualising and theorising of literacy and it critically questions the concept of literacy as a culturally universal competence. Second, it uses Biesta’s (2011) analysis of the differences between Anglo American and Continental traditions of Pedagogy to explore what is left out when a dominant concept of literacy as a culturally universal competence is being employed in a European context, focusing in particular on the dimension of ’subjectification’. The third part is an empirical analysis of literacy in curriculum within an innovative educational reform project New Basics implemented at the start of the millennia in Queensland Australia where a multidimensional concept of literacy holds a central position within the experimental curriculum design. Analysis is conducted using previously established dimensions of literacy and the arguments arising from the comparison of two different traditions of pedagogy. This paper offers a discussion of possible literacy education design that encompasses the dimension of ’subjectification’ as a process of becoming a ‘subject of action and responsibility’ (Biesta 2013).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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