SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.6 issue2 author indexsubject indexarticles search
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Services on Demand

Article

Indicators

Related links

  • On index processCited by Google
  • On index processSimilars in Google

Share


South African Journal of Childhood Education

On-line version ISSN 2223-7682
Print version ISSN 2223-7674

Abstract

MARTIN, Colwyn D.  and  EBRAHIM, Hasina B.. Teachers' discourses of literacy as social practice in advantaged and disadvantaged early childhood contexts. SAJCE [online]. 2016, vol.6, n.2, pp.1-10. ISSN 2223-7682.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v6i2.454.

This article examines two teachers' discourses of literacy as social practice in advantaged and disadvantaged early childhood centres for three- to four-year-olds. The intention is to make sense of the dominant discourse of literacy, its constitutive nature and its effects on children, teaching and learning. Foucault's theory of discourse is used to make salient the influence of interpretive frames of references on the understanding and practice of literacy. The data for the study was produced through a qualitative approach using in-depth semi-structured interviews. The findings show that teachers in both the advantaged and disadvantaged contexts are located in the dominant discourse of early literacy as a technical, autonomous skill. This discourse foregrounds children as adults-in-the-making (the becoming child) and a maturationist-environmentalist view of readiness for early literacy development. This narrow view of literacy discounts young children's positioning as social actors, issues of diversity and contextually situated practice.

        · text in English     · English ( pdf )

 

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License