Willis, Peter Inviting Learning: An exhibition of risk and enrichment in
adult education practice
London. NIACE. 2002
Inviting Learning takes us on an intriguing journey, which the author
describes as an “accompanied, walk-through exhibition”. The study uses
an expressive, or arts-based, research approach to develop textual
forms that portray rather than explain seven key episodes in his adult
education practice. Each episode is presented as an installation composed
of ‘panels’, each of which contains an anecdote from Willis’ practice,
a poetized reflection on the experience, and two related panels in
which the author seeks to ‘intuit’ and ‘distil’ the experience using
metaphorical language. The study is an attempt to present adult education
practice as a lived experience and to reveal the sense of risk, engagement
and adventure experienced by the author in his work in adult education,
and which he finds missing from the majority of texts that set out
to describe or explain adult education and adult learning.
Taylor, Denny (ed.) Many Families, Many Literacies: An international
declaration of principles
Portsmouth, NH. Heinemann Trade. 1997
This is a collection of articles
written by family literacy practitioners, researchers and academics
from around the world, examining
the dominant approaches in
family literacy. The articles critically review and challenge the assumptions,
stereotypes and slogans – particularly those that seek
to perpetuate beliefs about undereducated families as the
source of
many
educational
and social problems
– upon which these approaches are often based. Authors include Adele Thomas,
Elsa Auerbach, David Barton and Brian Street. Many Families, Many
Literacies provides an interesting starting point from which to
examine current
government initiatives such as No Child Left Behind in the U.S. and the
Early Years initiative in Ontario, and points out the need to critically
review the
assumptions, intentions, and goals of such initiatives.
Kallenbach, Silja & Julie Viens Open to Interpretation: Multiple
intelligences theory in adult literacy education NCSALL Reports
No. 21
Cambridge, MA. National Center for the Study of Adult
Learning and Literacy (NC SALL). 2002
Open to Interpretation
reports on The Adult Multiple Intelligences (AMI) Study,
which examined the application of multiple intelligences theory
in a variety of adult learning sites and settings. The study consisted
of two linked qualitative research projects.
The first consisted of 10 studies conducted by teachers and facilitated
by the AMI co-directors. The second was a study across the 10 sites
and settings conducted by the AMI co-directors. Methods included on-site
observations, qualitative interviews and teacher journals.
This exploratory qualitative study affirms the usefulness of multiple
intelligences theory in adult literacy education, and points
to the need
for
future research focused on how learners gain from practice
based on multiple intelligences.
Smith, Christine, Mary Beth Bingman, Judy Hofer,
Patsy Medina Connecting Practitioners and Researchers: An Evaluation
of
NCSALL’S Practitioner Dissemination and Research Network.
Cambridge, MA.
National Center for the Study of
Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL). 2002
The Practitioner Dissemination Research Network was created to support
systematic partnerships between adult literacy practitioners and university
researchers that would enhance the connections between adult literacy
research and practice in the United States. The report reviews the work of
the network between 1997 and 2001. Fourteen Practitioner Leaders, adult
basic education teachers in fourteen states, worked with NCSALL to identify
programs to serve as research sites in which practitioners would be
supported to do research. The Practitioner Leaders conducted their own
research related to NCSALL work, and organized study circles which
presented NCSALL research to practitioners and encouraged practitioners to
apply new theories in their literacy practice. Based on the project and
contrary to established opinion, NC SALL discovered that practitioners had a
strong interest in conducting research, in having opportunities
to learn about new research findings and
in applying new theories in their practice.
Mace, Jane The Give and Take of Writing: Scribes, literacy
and everyday life
London. NIACE. 2002
Jane Mace has written a thought-provoking
reflection on how those who are “literate” – particularly
those of us whom she describes as “literacy addicts” –
imagine and describe those who are not. Using examples from film and
literature she reveals the relative poverty of that imagination
and description.
As Mace notes, “...there is much said about the limited lives of illiterate
people and very little, outside the world of academic research, that
shows
illiteracy as different, rather than wrong.” The book is a refreshing examination
of the role of scribe, a copyist as opposed to the composer, as
means to understand that literacy
and illiteracy are in fact relative, and
that the assumptions that
underlie the deficit
model of literacy
– as well
as the more polite, but equally
destructive, assumption of
illiteracy as disadvantage – ignore
the social context of literacy and
the lived realities of those who have
been defined as illiterate.
