Boundary Crossing

Networking and Transforming Literacies in Research Processes and College Courses

Authors

  • Roz Ivanič Lancaster University
  • Candice Satchwell Lancaster University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v4i1.101

Keywords:

Literacy practices, Further Education, Transfer, academic literacy, vocational education, Informal education, Collaborative research

Abstract

Researchers in the field of academic literacies have shown that, for many students, entering higher education involves a renegotiation of identity, that the education system privileges certain literacy practices over others, and that studying seems to have little in common with the ways of knowing, valuing and communicating which students bring with them from other domains of their lives. This lack of relation raises an important theoretical issue for literacy studies: if literacy practices are socioculturally situated, to what extent are the boundaries between one context and another impermeable? In order to address this question, this paper draws on research in the broader context of post-compulsory education in the UK, investigating the interface between students’ literacy practices in their lives beyond college, and those involved in participation, learning and demonstrating learning on their vocational and academic courses. It examines boundary crossings firstly between the literacy practices of research and of teaching in the collaborative research methodology, and secondly between literacy practices in different domains of students’ lives. It argues that the characteristics of literacy practices with which students identify in their lives beyond college can be harnessed as resources for learning and for transforming the communicative landscape of further and higher education.

Author Biographies

  • Roz Ivanič, Lancaster University

    Roz Ivanič is Professor of Linguistics in Education in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University and Assistant Director of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre. She is the Director of the Literacies for Learning in Further Education project funded by the ESRC Teaching and Learning programme. Her publications include Writing and identity (1997), Situated Literacies (2000, co-edited with David Barton and Mary Hamilton), and articles in Language and Education, Qualitative Studies in Education and The British Educational Research Journal.

  • Candice Satchwell, Lancaster University

    Candice Satchwell is research associate at the Lancaster University Literacy Research Centre and senior lecturer in English at Blackpool and the Fylde College. From 2004 to 2007 she worked on the Literacies for Learning in Further Education project and is now working on a project on homelessness and educational needs and provision, funded by the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy. She has recent and forthcoming papers in the Journal of Vocational Education and Training, The Teacher Trainer, and Pedagogy, Culture and Society.

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Published

2015-09-14

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Ivanič, R., & Satchwell, C. (2015). Boundary Crossing: Networking and Transforming Literacies in Research Processes and College Courses. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 4(1), 101-124. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v4i1.101

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