Social uses of writing: a study of literacy practices and literacy events in the experience of literacy teachers

Abstract

This article focuses on the phenomenon of literacy. The study was carried out along two months with literacy teachers. It is a qualitative approach, with ethnographic implications; the study aims at answering the following questions: How are characterized the social uses of writing in these teachers’ the daily life? What literacy practices and literacy events are possible to deduce/describe in their everyday life and in their work? The theoretical back-ground is Street (1984, 1988, 2003), Barton (1994), Barton, Hamilton and Ivanic (2000), Hamilton (2000), among other authors of the New Literacy Studies. The results indicate that the teachers mention literacy dominant events as part of your everyday life – referring to conceptions of the autonomous model of literacy. In their work, however, they mention many vernacular literacy events, referring to conceptions of the ideological model of literacy. These dissonances suggest that the teaching action is anchored in educational fads and not in theoretical constructs of this area.