Perspectives of Literacy

620 Words3 Pages
There are many different theories and perspectives pertaining to literacy. However, not everyone understands them enough to apply these theories to literacy and everyday life. One perspective of literacy that is vague to educators is the sociocultural perspective. Current research on this perspective is focusing on how to incorporate sociocultural matters into literacy to give students a well-rounded education, improve the learning process, define the pros and cons of each theory under the sociocultural perspective, and explain why these theories are useful in literacy improvement. The sociocultural perspective is the interaction of social and cultural elements into literacy and this perspective includes three theories: literacy as a social practice, multiliteracies, and critical literacy. Literacy as a social practices is most simply defined as how people use literacy and why they use literacy in their everyday practices. This theory also supports the concept that literacy practices are shaped by culture, society, values, attitudes, and beliefs—more so, literacy exists in relationships between people. Therefore, literacy can be recognized through interaction. According to this concept different types of literacy can be used based on the situation, literacy is developed through history, literacy practices change or develop over time, and some types of literacy are practiced more so they become more dominant than others. However, literacy events and practices differ. Events are observable, so individuals can see what people are doing with texts. Practices are inferred—they connect to unobservable beliefs, values, and attitudes. The difference between events and practices is one weakness of this theory. The connection of events to practices is unclear because one cannot assume that a certain practice is a result of an event. This theory also does not explain how

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