Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id j7PDGVG09747; Thu, 25 Aug 2005 09:16:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 09:16:31 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <433A754C@webmail.utk.edu> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: jataylor <jataylor@utk.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:2250] Book review X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Infinite Mobile Delivery (Hydra) SMTP v3.62.01 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Status: O Content-Length: 8161 Lines: 146 Hi all - Fyi..The book described in the following review offers a framework for understanding some of the larger constraints and the opportunities through which adult literacy professional development is practiced. ~ Jackie >===== Original Message From gdemetrion@msn.com ===== ______________________________________________________________________________ ____________ To: Adult Literacy Library Initiatives Subject: [LIBRARY-LIT:87] Jay Derrick's review of Conflicting Paradigms Some may have interest in Jay Derrick's review of Conflicting Paradigms in Adult Literacy Education published in: Literacy and Numeracy Studies Vol 13 No 2, 2004, published by the Centre for Language and Literacy, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Their website is www.education.uts.edu.au/lns/ Jay is a UK-based consultant and researcher in adult literacy, numeracy and language. He can be reached at <jay.derrick@blueyonder.co.uk> His website may also be of interest: www.bluesky-learning.com My thanks to Jay for this thoughtful review. Regards, George Demetrion _________________________________________________________________________ Review Demetrion G. (2005) Conflicting Paradigms in Adult Literacy Education: In Quest of a US Democratic Politics of Literacy, George Demetrion, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey 2005 https://www.erlbaum.com/ 320 pp, softback, $36.00 This is an ambitious book that performs a valuable service, and not just for North American readers: it illuminates in great detail the 'telling case' of a specific political debate over the period covering the two Bush presidencies (senior and junior), and sandwiched between them, the Clinton administration. It deals with the trajectory of a wide-ranging public debate about adult literacy: its nature, how it can best be taught and learned, how learning can best be assessed, and, most sharply of all, how adult literacy work can be accountable, to learners, and to the taxpayer. Demetrion discerns three distinct schools of thought and practice as protagonists: the 'participatory literacy movement', rooted in grass-roots political activism; the New Literacy Studies school, whose ethnographic studies identify multiple and dynamic literacy practices and which resists simplistic and reductive views of literacy; and the US federal government, which has through many administrations seen literacy straightforwardly as an issue of 'workforce readiness', an attribute of individuals that can be scientifically measured using standardised tests. These three positions are linked by Demetrion to Mertens' three paradigms of social science research, representing in turn the emancipatory, the constructivist, and the neo-positivist. Demetrion's account begins in 1990, when the senior Bush administration set eight National Education Goals, the sixth of which stated that by the year 2000, every adult American would be literate. It was realised that in order to monitor progress towards this goal there would have to be national standards and a national system of assessment; and for this to be achieved and have credibility, there would have to be some consensus between policymakers, academics, practitioners and learners about what it means to be literate. What Demetrion shows convincingly is that it was not that there had not been debates before between these constituencies: on the contrary, most practitioners across the US were only too familiar with the process of campaigning for funding and lobbying for political support for their work at the state level. What was new was the identified need for a national system of accountability, and a federal government more and more determined that this system shou! ld be based on objective standards, free of professional judgements and so apparently comparable across the whole country, notwithstanding the strong theoretical, political and practical objections to such an approach. During the Clinton period, the federally-funded Equipped for the Future project attempted to reconcile the differing viewpoints and come up with a national system of standards for 'what adults need to know and be able to do in the 21st century', starting with a massive consultation exercise involving thousands of people over a period of years, including learners and teachers, employers, policymakers and academics, and achieving the publication of the standards by 2000. Work started on producing assessment tools to complement the standards, but federal funding was withdrawn early in the new Bush administration: 'Unlike medicine, agriculture, and industrial production, the field of education operates largely on the basis of ideology and professional consensus. As such, it is subject to fads....we will change education to make it an evidenced-based field' (US Department of Education Strategic Plan, 2002-07). The situation in 2005 is similar in the UK, and I suspect in many other countries too: politicians everywhere are talking of 'evidence-based policymaking' by which they seem to mean the avoidance of professional judgements, political debate and provisionality, and embracing the comforting certainty of policymaking by numbers. The book uses a wide range of resources to animate this debate: academic authorities backing the various positions being argued, policy papers, and political publications, as well as the wealth of material produced as part of Equipped for the Future. What is particularly interesting is the use Demetrion makes of contributions to electronic list discussions over the period, which represent powerful evidence of the important role practitioners have played in this public debate. Demetrion rightly sees these threads as of great value, acting in effect as 'thick description', and at times giving his account an ethnographic flavour. The book provides illuminating discussions on the intellectual origins of the perspectives of the various protagonists, including earlier debates on adult literacy and the quality of life and on the effects of globalisation and new technology on workplace training issues: there is also an informative chapter on relevant research traditions. The heart of the book is a detailed account of Equipped for the Future: notwithstanding the project's equivocal future under the junior Bush regime, Demetrion sees it as a paradigm of the kind of practical and political process that attempts to construct an imperfect but workable compromise between a range of differing political positions. Interestingly he sees this kind of project as a modern manifestation of the spirit of the authors of the US constitution, but one that rejects both an 'uncritical pietistic embrace of the founding fathers as heroes' and 'any cynical deconstruction of the intent of the founders or what they actually accomplished.' He suggests that 'a working through of these political tensions will reveal an unappreciated middle ground, which could lead to a substantial political and cultural revitalisation of an inclusive US democratic tradition' Following on from this, Demetrion offers a provisional theoretical framework for literacy as growth, which ! incorporates Dewey's pedagogy of pragmatic enquiry with Barton's ecological metaphor for literacy activity. This theoretical framework is presented as analogous to and compatible with the political processes of dialogue, collective identification of agreed practical problems, and a pragmatic and pluralistic search for provisional and imperfect solutions, between individuals who do not necessarily agree about everything, but recognise their need to work together for the common good. It is heartening to hear an optimistic voice in this context, particularly from the field of practice: but even hardened cynics will find this book extremely interesting and thought-provoking. NB: documents relating to Equipped for the Future can be found at http://eff.cls.utk.edu/resources/products_pub.htm#Publications Jay Derrick UK-based consultant on adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL jay.derrick@blueyonder.co.uk March 2005
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