Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T06:50:18.627Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Socio-Cultural Approaches to Literacy (Literacies)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2008

James Gee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There has emerged, over the last decade or so, a fairly cohesive body of work centered around a socio-cultural approach to literacy (e.g., Cazden 1988, Cook-Gumperz 1986, Gee 1990, Graff 1987, Heath 1983, Pattison 1982, Scollon and Scollon 1981, Street 1984). This work argues that the traditional view of literacy as a private mental possession which can be quantified and measured in terms of discrete decontextualized skills is deeply inadequate. To see why this is so, consider the following simple argument centered around the notion of ‘reading” (Gee 1989).

Type
Foundations of Literacy
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 12 , March 1991 , pp. 31 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

UNANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bleich, D. 1988. The double perspective: Language, literacy and social relations. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bruce, B., Gee, J. P. and Michaels, S.. 1989. The Literacies Institute. Newton, MA: Literacies Institute, Educational Development Center. [Literacies Institute Technical Report, No.1.]Google Scholar
Cazden, C. 1988. Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Cook-Gumperz, J. (ed.) 1986. The social construction of literacy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cosmides, L. 1989. The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Cognition. 31.1.187–276.Google Scholar
Delpit, L. D. 1986. Skills and other dilemmas of a progressive educator. Harvard Educational Review. 56.4.379–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson, F. 1987. Transformation and school success: The politics and culture of educational achievement. Anthropology and Education Quarterly. 18.4.335–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forman, E. A. 1987. Learning through peer interaction: A Vygotskian perspective. Genetic Epistemologist. 15.1.6–15.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1985. The Foucault reader. [Ed. Paul, Rainbow.] New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S. 1988. Mind matters: How mind and brain interact to create our conscious lives. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Gee, J. P. 1989. Literacy, discourse, and linguistics: Essays by James Paul Gee. [Special issue of the Journal of Education. 171.1. Ed. C. Mitchell.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gee, J. P. In press. The social mind. New York: Bergin and Garvey/Praeger.Google Scholar
Gee, J. P., Michaels, S. and O'Connor, C.. In press. Discourse analysis. In Lecompte, M. D., Goetz, J. P. and Millroy, W. (eds.) Handbook of qualitative research. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Graff, H. J. 1987. The legacies of literacy: Continuities and contradictions in Western culture and society. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, S. B. 1983. Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holquist, M. 1990. Dialogism: Bakhtin and his world. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krashen, S. 1985. The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Kress, G. 1989. Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kruger, A. C. 1988. The effect of peer and adult-child transactive discussions on moral reasoning. Papers presented at the meeting of the Conference on Human Development. Charleston, South Carolina, march 1988.Google Scholar
Lave, J. 1988. The culture of acquisition and the practice of understanding. Palo Alto, CA: Institute for Research on Learning. [Report No. IRL 88–0007]Google Scholar
Leiber, J. 1991. An invitation to cognitive science. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewin, R. 1988. In the age of mankind. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.Google Scholar
Light, P. and Glachan, M.. 1985. Facilitation of individual problem solving through peer interaction. Educational Psychology. 5.2.217–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonell, D. 1986. Theories of discourse: An introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Manktelow, K. I. and Over, D. E.. 1990. Inference and understanding: A philosophical and psychological perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. 1989. Factual writing: Exploring and challenging social reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ogbu, J. and Matute-Bianchi, M. E.. 1986. Understanding sociocultural factors: Knowledge, identity and school adjustment. In Beyond language: Social and cultural factors in schooling language minority students. Sacramento, CA: Bilingual Education Office, California State Department of Education. 73–142.Google Scholar
Pattison, R. 1982. On literacy: The politics of the world from Homer to the age of Rock. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, R. 1989. Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, B. B. and Ochs, E. (eds.) 1986. Language socialization across cultures. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. B. K.. 1981. Narrative, literacy, and face in inter-ethnic communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Scribner, S. and Cole, M.. 1981. The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skehan, P. 1989. Individual differences in second-language learning. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. 1990. The representational theory of mind: An introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Street, B. 1984. Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, D. and Dorsey-Gaines, C.. 1988. Growing up literate: Learning from inner city families. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Tudge, J. R. H. 1985. The effect of social interaction on cognitive development: How creative is conflict? Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. 7.1.33–40.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. 1987. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psychology, including the volume thinking and speech. New York: Plenum. [Ed. Rieber, R. W. and Carton, A. S..]Google Scholar
Wells, G. 1986. The meaning makers: Children learning language and using language to learn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Wertsch, J. V. 1985a. Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wertsch, J. V. 1985b. The semiotic mediation of mental life: L. S. Vygotsky and M. M. Bakhtin. In Mertz, E. and Parmentier, R. J. (eds.) Semiotic mediation: Sociocultural and psychological perspectives. New York: Academic Press. 46–69.Google Scholar