Cross-cultural approaches to literacy /
edited by Brian Street.
- xii, 321 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
- Cambridge studies in oral and literate culture ; 23. .
- Cambridge studies in oral and literate culture ; 23. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: the new literacy studies / The incorporation of literacy into the communicative repertoire -- Conceptions and uses of literacy in a Papua New Guinean village / Literacy and feelings: the encoding of affect in Nukulaelae letters / The uses of schooling and literacy in a Zafimaniry village / Arabic literacy and secrecy among the Mende of Sierra Leone / Local literacies and national politics: ethnicity, gender and religion -- Literacy and cultural identity in the Horn of Africa: the Somali case / Gender, language and the politics of literacy / Literacy development and ethnicity: an Alaskan example / The letter and the spirit: literacy and religious authority in the history of the Aladura movement in western Nigeria / Literacy variation in urban settings -- Vernacular writing: varieties of literacy among Philadelphia high school students / Collaborative writing: appropriating power or reproducing authority? / Literacy and social process: a community in transition / Code switching and mode switching: community interpreters and mediators of literacy / Brian Street -- Don Kulick, Christopher Stroud -- Niko Besnier -- Maurice Bloch -- Caroline H. Bledsoe, Kenneth M. Robey -- I.M. Lewis -- Kathleen Rockhill -- Stephen Reder, Karen Reed Wikelund -- Peter Probst -- Miriam Camitta -- Amy Shuman -- Gail Weinstein-Shr -- Mike Baynham.
"Brian Street's volume investigates the meanings and uses of literacy in different cultures and societies. These largely ethnographic essays bring together anthropological and linguistic work written over the past ten years by anthropologists and sociolinguists. Accounts of literacy practices vary from one context to another, and challenge the view that literacy is a single, uniform skill, essential to functioning in a modern society. The conclusions reached will be crucial for future researchers, and of interest to educators, developers and practitioners in the field."--Publisher description.