critical literacies in language education

Matthew ClarkeSchool of Education

University of New South Wales

‘Traditional’ orientations to literacy

• Single (print-based) modality• Emphasis on decoding and comprehension

(rather than critical analysis) • Emphasis on one, single ‘correct’ reading• View of the reader as passive receptacle rather

than active agent• Notions of language as potentially objective

Objective language?

The following two texts are taken from new articles, written in the context of the closure of Hong Kong primary schools due to budgetary pressures: How do the language choices work to construct particular meanings?

• “Can you stand idly by while Comrade Li takes a bloody axe to the sole source of social and economic advancement for our community’s isolated and underprivileged, our poor and our needy?”

• “The rationalization of primary schools leads to short-term disruption but long term benefits.”

Activity

• Look at the article you brought to class today

– How objective is the language?

– What linguistic features reflect its lack of objectivity?

• Share your observations with a peer

Critical = rational, autonomous?A common interpretation of critique is as equivalent to ‘pure

rationality’, e.g.:

“A primary aim (the primary aim?) of education is to safeguard the transition of our children into critical autonomous thinkers.”– Evidential style of belief acquisition & possession– Motivational desire to be critical– Autonomous relative to the acquisition, possession & influence of this

motivation(Cuypers & Ishtiyaque, 2006, p. 740)

This aspiration ignores the role of power and ideology in language and discourse and reflects “the modern dream of an ideal method, an ideal language, an ideal rationality, an ideal reason.”

(Toulmin, 1990)

Critical literacies

• Critical literacy assumptions:– Thought, language & literacy are mediated by

historically & socially situated power relations– All ‘truth claims’ are partial and situated– No clear divide between facts & values– Language-as-discourse and ‘reality’ are mutually

constitutive (language doesn’t merely reflect ‘reality’)

– All text participants are ‘positioned’ within Discourses

Criticality and deconstruction“Critical approaches begin by culturally and

historically situating languages and discourses, texts, their authors and readers – bracketing and disrupting their ‘natural’, given or taken-for-granted status in institutional and everyday contexts… This involves an understanding of how texts and discourses can be constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed to represent, contest and, indeed, transform material, social and semiotic relations.”

Luke & Dooley, 2010 in press, p. 1

Social & historical antecedents

• Social change & upheaval– Awareness of oppression/suppression of groups and

minorities (e.g. women, ethnic groups)– Changing economic patterns (the ‘knowledge economy’,

globalization, casualization of work)• Technological innovations

– New forms of information production– Increased access to information

• The combined effect of these changes resulted in: Concern about mass ‘indoctrination’ (Frankfurt school) Challenging (hitherto) dominant truths (Feminism,

Postcolonialism) Questioning ‘truth’ per se (Poststructuralism)

Some key critical concepts from social theory (and associated theorists)

1. Ideology (Marx, Althusser)

2. Discourse (Foucault)

3. Power (Foucault)

4. Capital – social, cultural, symbolic (Bourdieu)

5. Positioning (Davies & Harre)

6. Identity

Activity• In groups, draw on your existing understandings, as

well as research on the internet, to prepare a single slide on ONE of the concepts from the previous slide, addressing the following points:– What does the term mean?– What is its significance for language education?– How might it be drawn on in the language education

classroom?• Upload your slide on the page on the wiki,

“Introduction to some key social theory concepts”

Key concepts: ‘Ideology’

• Ideologies are systems of belief that serve or reflect particular interests, yet purport to be the ‘natural’ order of things, or ‘commonsense’:– “It’s well know that…”– “Of course, we all recognize that..”– “Nobody would dispute the fact that…”

• Ideologies involve the “recognition of legitimacy through misrecognition of arbitrariness”.

(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 168)

• Barbie text

Foucault’s critique of ideology

• Firstly, because “it always stands in virtual opposition to something else which is supposed to count as truth”.

• Secondly, because the concept of ideology refers “to something of the order of a subject”, i.e. it presupposes a rational human subject on the lines of the model provided by classical philosophy

• Thirdly, ideology stands in a secondary position relative to something which functions as its ‘base’, as its material economic determinant

The Foucault Reader, p. 60

Key concepts: ‘Discourse’

• Discourse refers to “ways of behaving , interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, reading, and writing…ways of being in the world…forms of life.”

Gee, 1996, p. viii

• “Discourse is a practice not just of representing the world, but of signifying the world, constituting and constructing the world in meaning.” Fairclough, 1992, p. 64

• • Discourses in a text

Key concepts: ‘Discourse’• Discourses are meaningful & recognizable ways of

organizing meaning• Discourses both represent and constitute (produce)

‘reality’ at multiple levels:– Social meanings– Social (power) relations– Social identities

• Discourses are multiple and overlapping, existing in relation to other discourses

• Discourses may complement, compete, or contradict each other

Discursively produced “truth”

“The problem does not consist in drawing the line between that in a discourse which falls under the category of scientificity or truth, and that which comes under some other category, but in seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses which are neither true nor false”

The Foucault Reader, p. 60

Activity: Discourse

• Look at your article again– What discourses can you identify operating in the

text?– Share your thoughts with a peer

• Now look at the ‘Tragic Hero’ news article– What discourses are being drawn upon in this

text?

Discourse in a news article• Tragic hero• Gulf war sailor / veteran• Fine young Australian• Former leading seaman• Plucky former navy man• Enjoyed post-Anzac drinks with

former navy mates• Former Melbourne Grammar

student • Father of an 18 month old

daughter• Sir Galahad• Slain• Cut down• Plunged

Discourses

– Nationalistic/patriotic discourse

– Family/society discourse

– Chivalric discourse

Discourse in a news article

• Crooks • Thugs• Fled• Cowardly knife attack• An attack that shocked

even hardened police• Absolutely callous, cold

blooded

Discourses

– ‘Evil villains’ discourse

Key concepts: Power

• A Foucauldian view of power (1977, 1978, 1980)– Involves a set of relations rather than a possession– Circulates throughout society rather than being a system of

domination of the ‘powerless’ by the ‘powerful’– Is productive rather than merely repressive– Has no ultimate origin or source– Always entails resistance– Is linked with knowledge in discourse

Power and resistance“It is not a matter of emancipating truth from every

system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time.”

Foucault, 1980, p. 133

“We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy.”

Foucault, 1978, p. 101

Activity: Power

• Look at this example of a teachers’ worksheet and instructions

• How does it reflect the ideas about power that we have discussed

Capital…and other concepts from Pierre Bourdieu

• Bourdieu developed a sociological model to understand how inequality is reproduced. Key elements include:– Capital (e.g. cultural capital, symbolic capital, social

capital, economic capital): resources that reveal and confer social status, thus determining ‘distance from necessity’

– Field: a dynamic social arena where individuals engage in practice and compete for ‘capital’

– Habitus: a set of socially constructed, durable, dispositions that structure our social actions in largely unconscious ways

– Practice: social activities that produce/reproduce field and habitus

Identity… why identity?• The origins of the contemporary focus on

identity lie in many sources, including:– 19th/20th century psychology with its emphasis on

the self– 19th/20th century secularization and its emphasis on

worldly life, self-fulfillment and activity– The decline of the politics of class and redistribution– Increasing emphases on individual, human rights– The burgeoning of media and consumer cultures

and practices (e.g. self-help manuals) targeting the individual

(Bendle, 2003; Block, 2007)

Two takes on identity• Theories of identity can be viewed in terms of two

broad perspectives: – Modernist & psychoanalytic approaches: view identity

as a singular ‘thing’ and seek to explain its ‘truth’ or uncover its essence; how it has been formed? how it is structured? how it can explain individual and social traits?

– Poststructuralist/postmodern approaches: view identity as an effect of discourse and power, rather than the expression of any inner ‘truth’, and as fragmented and multiple, rather than coherent and singular

Positioning“The discursive process whereby selves are

located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced story lines.

There can be interactive positioning in which what one person says positions another.

And there can be reflexive positioning in which one positions oneself.”

Davies & Harre, 1990, p. 48

Critical strategies

• Analysis / deconstruction• Commentary• Counter-posing alternatives / disruption• Irony, satire, parody• Emotion / outrage

Activity: Critical textual analyses • Can you comment on the operations of ideology, discourse,

positioning, power, disruption, irony, satire, etc in these texts?• How do the different modes employed contribute to the

meanings that are being made?

• My little pony • Black people love us!• A students’ response to the ‘defining success’

activity• Facebook profile template (see next slide)• Healthy eating commercial

A digital-critical pedagogy

after Buckingham, 2003

Production

• Studying digital-media production involves exploring:– Technologies– Professional practices– The industry-business– Regulation– Circulation & distribution– Access & participation

Languages

• Studying digital-media languages involves exploring:– Meanings– Conventions– Codes– Genres– Choices– Combinations– Technologies

Represetations

• Studying digital-media representations involves exploring:– Degree of realism– Truth claims– Inclusions & exclusions– Objectivity/bias– Stereotyping– Interpretation & influence

Audiences

• Studying digital-media audiences involves exploring:– Targeting– Address– Circulation– Uses– Sense-making– Pleasures– Social/group differences

Activity: Critiquing websites

• Look at Box 11.1 on p. 178 of the handout of Chapter 11, Digital Literacies, from David Buckingham’s (2003) book, Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture

• Visit and explore a website that is popular with your students and analyze/critique it using the prompts in Buckingham’s table

Homework

• Read at least one of the articles on Remix as a digital literacies practice

• If you haven’t already done so, create your own page on the wiki:

http://dig-crit-lit.wikispaces.com/• On your wiki page:– Tell us something about you and your work context– Create a link to a favourite website or multimedia

product (e.g. a Youtube video you like)

References• Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatus. In L. Althusser (Ed.),

Lenin and philosophy and other essays by Louis Althusser (pp. 127-188). London: Monthly Review Press.

• Butler, J. (2002). What is critique? An essay on Foucault’s virtue. In D. Ingram (Ed.), The political: Readings in continental philosophy. London: Blackwell.

• Davies, B. & Harre, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20, 43-63

• Dimitriadis, G., & Kamberelis, G. (2006). Theory for education. New York: Routledge.• Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.• Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish. London: Penguin.• Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. Vol 1: An introduction (R. Hurley,

Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books.• Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. Brighton: Harvester.• Gee, J.P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. London:

Falmer• Morrell, E. (2007).Critial literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent and

liberation. New York: Routledge.• Rabinow, P. (Ed.) (1984). The Foucault reader. New York: Pantheon.• Toulmin, S. (1990). Cosmopolis: The hidden agenda of modernity. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

One teacher’s classroom activity

• “Write your definition of success in the tulip below.”

Power…and resistance