Editor: Viv Edwards (University of Reading, UK)
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Volume: 18 Number: 4 Page: 285–290
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Ethnographies of Literacy: Introduction
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Mike Baynham
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In this paper I review ethnography of literacy as a well established, indeed central research methodology in the 'New Literacy Studies'. Starting from Szwed's programmatic 1981 paper, I identify a move away from questions of instruction that had hitherto characterised literacy research
towards a focus on literacy use in contexts beyond the classroom. I argue that, despite this apparent shift of gaze away from questions of teaching and learning to questions of use in context, there has been a continued, if at times implicit, orientation to pedagogical questions in a number
of these studies. I then go on to review the papers in this theme issue, asking what are their stances, implicit or explicit, to questions of literacy pedagogy? I conclude by arguing that it is time for ethnographies of literacy to re-engage with the question of instruction, understood as
situated teaching and learning.
Keywords: LITERACY, ETHNOGRAPHY, SITUATED TEACHING AND LEARNING
© 2004 Multilingual Matters
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