Volume: 21  Number: 3  Page: 180–196  doi:10.2167/le746.0

Developing Critical Social Awareness Through Digital Literacy Practices Within the Context of Higher Education in Brazil

Denise Bértoli Braga Department of Applied Linguistics, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil

This paper discusses a teaching experience developed in the context of Brazilian higher education, which had as its central goal developing critical social awareness through digital literacy teaching. The discussion begins with an explanation of a Neo-Gramscian approach to critical literacy education, contextualising this perspective within different conceptions of schooling. This broad philosophical debate is then related to key perspectives that have informed the social turn in literacy studies. The discussion emphasises that a positive teaching intervention should link language instruction to social awareness and ideological critique. Finally, these theoretical assumptions are illustrated by a report of a classroom experience in which university students learning basic digital literacy concepts (hypertext and hypermodality) were assigned the task of designing sites to suit the interests of a local peripheral community. The findings illuminate some contradictions and possibilities for teachers who try to combine literacy teaching with more complex social analysis.

Keywords: digital literacy, critical social awareness, language teaching

Copyright © 2007 D. B. Braga

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