Drawing a proverbial line in the sand between those studies of reading and writing that focus on 1) “discrete elements” and 2) “social practices and conceptions,” Street calls for new studies of literacy founded on theories that reveal the ideological moorings of people various literacy practices. Street’s purpose, then, is to discuss how the assumptions about the informing theories and methods of autonomous models of literacy differ from those of ideological models. He points to how the autonomous model fails to recognize relationships between people and their practices while the ideological model acknowledges as “inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in society” (433). Further, Street counters the idea that the autonomous and the ideological models should be blended, stating that the ideological model already provides for a blending; indeed, it is the autonomous model that, with its connections to ethnographic methodologies and examinations of cultural practices that stands on its own as a blended form of study.
Street takes time to challenge some of the arguments that have been posed against his blended theory, and then addresses the implications that these different models have for research that is focused on literacy. He first notes that, rather than a Marxist notion of ideology, he is arguing for ideology as “the site of tension between authority and power on the one hand and resistance and creativity on the other” (434). Street then goes on to explain how discourse analysis, ethnographic studies, and context analysis provide a wealth of data (as in Heath’s example) for researchers to examine. He closes with the caveat that the anthropological method can still be used within an autonomous model of literacy; for that reason, literacy studies must also be paired with the theory that informs anthropological methods.
Notes and Quotes
“Where, for instance, educationalists and psychologists have focused on discrete elements of reading and writing skills, anthropologists and sociolinguists concentrate on literacies—the social practices and conceptions of reading and writing” (430).
In focusing on literacies rather than the “discrete elements of reading and writing skills” researchers will be able to examine the contexts for writing, contexts which cannot be isolated from other contexts.
“I have argued that the supposed shift from ‘divide’ to ‘continuum’ was more rhetorical than real: that, in fact, many of the writers in this field continued to represent literacy as sufficiently different from orality in its social and cognitive consequences, that their findings scarcely differ from the classic concept of the ‘great divide’ evident in Goody’s earlier work (1977)” (431).
“…the apparent neutrality of literacy practices disguises their significance for the distribution of power in society and for authority relations: The acquisition, use, and meaning of different literacies have an ideological character that has not been sufficiently recognized until recently” (431).
“Researchers dissatisfied with the autonomous model of literacy and with the assumptions outlined above have come to view literacy practices as inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in society and to recognize the variety of cultural practices associated with reading and writing in different contexts” (433-4).
This quote seems to point to the development of new ways of valuing various literacy practices.
“…literacy can no longer be addressed as a neutral technology, as in the reductionist “autonomous” model, but is already a social and ideological practice involving fundamental aspects of epistemology, power, and politics…” (435).
Street’s ideological model could be seen as linked to Haas’s discussion of materiality in writing technology.
“Central to development of this conceptual apparatus for the study of literacy is a re-evaluation of the importance of ‘context’ in linguistic analysis” (439).
Context is key in research models that aim to look at the whole spectrum of literacy a person may practice. As well, studies informed by anthropological practices are well-positioned for contextual literacy studies.
texturology 