Research Catalog

Title

The social uses of literacy : theory and practice in contemporary South Africa / edited by Mastin Prinsloo and Mignonne Breier ; preface by Brian V. Street.

Publication

Bertsham, South Africa : Sached Books ; Philadelphia : J. Benjamins, [1996]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Prinsloo, Mastin.
• Breier, Mignonne.

Description

vi, 279 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

• The Social Uses of Literacy: Theory and Practice in Contemporary South Africa challenges state-driven policy and provision in South Africa around the construction of a national delivery system for adult literacy that is part of a programme for Adult Basic Education. The implication is that many people who are the target of this system will be unwilling to participate at the entry point of literacy acquisition unless a reconceptualisation of the nature of literacy use by adults is made.
• Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material, this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy, and about adult education. Above all, it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so called 'illiterate' people already use reading, writing and numeracy in their everyday lives.
• Drawing on the theory and methods of the New Literacy Studies, this book reveals the complexity and diversity of uneducated people's uses of literacy. It raises important questions for policy makers everywhere about how adults should be taught in relation to their own experiences and needs, and about the value of mass-scale adult literacy programmes aimed at so called 'illiterates'.

Series Statement

Studies in written language and literacy ; v. no. 4

Uniform Title

Studies in written language and literacy ; v. 4.

Subject

• Literacy > Social aspects > South Africa
• Adult education > Social aspects > South Africa
• Education and state > South Africa
• Popular education > South Africa

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-274) and index.

Contents

• Preface / Brian V. Street -- Introduction / Mastin Prinsloo and Mignonne Breier -- Ch. 1. Literacy, voter education and constructions of citizenship in the Western Cape during the first democratic national elections in South Africa / Mastin Prinsloo and Steven Robins -- Ch. 2. Literacy, knowledge, gender and power in the workplace on three farms in the Western Cape / Diana Gibson -- Ch. 3. Literacy and communication in a Cape factory / Mignonne Breier and Lynette Sait -- Ch. 4. Communicative practices of the service staff of a school / Kathy Watters -- Ch. 5. Literacy mediation and social identity in Newtown, Eastern Cape / Liezl Malan -- Ch. 6. Cultural brokers and bricoleurs of modern and traditional literacies: land struggles in Namaqualand's Coloured reserves / Steven Robins -- Ch. 7. Literacy learning and local literacy practice in Bellville South / Liezl Malan --
• Ch. 8. 'We can all sing, but we can't all talk': literacy brokers and tsotsi gangsters in a Cape Town shantytown / Ammon China and Steven Robins -- Ch. 9. Literacy, migrancy and disrupted domesticity: Khayelitshan ways of knowing / Phumza Mpoyiya and Mastin Prinsloo -- Ch. 10. 'We are waiting/this is our home': literacy and the search for resources in the rural Eastern Cape / M. J. McEwan and Liezl Malan -- Ch. 11. Taking literacy for a ride - reading and writing in the taxi industry / Mignonne Breier, Matsepela Taetsane and Lynette Sait -- Ch. 12. Literacy practices in an informal settlement in the Cape Peninsula / Catherine Kell -- Afterword / Tony Morphet.

ISBN

• 1556193203
• 1556193211 (pb : alk. paper)

LCCN

96014789

OCLC

ocm34475138

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries