Catalogue

The conception of literacy is changing to reflect the profound economic, social, political and cultural changes of the past half century. In this report, the authors examine three broad literacy ideologies - cognitive, individual-based model, economics-driven model, and sociocultural model. While current research situates literacy in social practice, government policy aligns more with the cognitive and economics-driven models of literacy. The authors find the need for a new national literacy policy which is flexible and accommodates current and future literacies, and supports community capacity-building. They also find at practitioner level that all are teachers of literacy and need to be able to recognise and teach all of the different literacies needed by learners. The report also highlights implications for literacy testing. The report includes an overview (part 1) and discussion paper (part 2).