Multiple Literacies Theory: A Deleuzian Perspective

Diana Masny, David R. Cole

Research output: Book/Research ReportAuthored Book

Abstract

This book comes at a time when literacy has perhaps been overly researched and theorized around the world. Governments are especially interested in investigating and collecting data about how their citizens become literate. One might legitimately ask the question: Why do we need more research and theory about literacy? The short answer to this question is that we do not need more information about the processes of literacy. What we do need is work that combines data with a theoretical frame that makes sense of the diverse literacy practices and complex demographics of populations through which literacy is now apparent. In poststructural terms, it could be said that literacy research is an area of ‘over-coding’ (Webb, 2009). This means that the balance between signification and the content of the signification is out of phase. For example, the enormous attention that has been given to reading comprehension in educational research is incongruous with the role that reading comprehension plays in the educational process. Reading comprehension has been over-coded by outside bodies solely interested in the results of reading comprehension, i.e., literacy tests. This volume addresses this situation by going outside of the norm,and proposing a new way of conceptualizing literacy, Multiple Literacies Theory (Masny, 2006), combined with data to solidify this view.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationNetherlands
PublisherSense
Number of pages199
ISBN (Print)9789087909093
Publication statusPublished - 2009

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