Adolescents’ home literacy practices across social classes in Sao Paulo, Brazil and their teachers’ conceptualizations of these practices

Rocha-Schmid, Elaine (2015). Adolescents’ home literacy practices across social classes in Sao Paulo, Brazil and their teachers’ conceptualizations of these practices. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This is a study of discourses and practices of literacies in education in Brazil. More specifically, it investigates the home literacy practices of twelve adolescents from lower and upper-social classes in three different schools in São Paulo, Brazil. The study aims to address the general question of how these adolescents engage in literacy practices in the new digital era. Developing this question the study addresses questions of how teachers conceptualise these adolescents’ outside school literacy practices and whether these inform classroom work. The study draws on a sociocultural approach to literacy as social practice, which has informed research in literacy studies in the last decades. In addition, because literacy practices are directly linked with the teaching of standard Portuguese as a first language in Brazil, sociolinguistic approaches and theories are also drawn upon. Data analysis of the discourses of language and literacy in Brazil suggests a context of education which hinders more than promotes lower-social class adolescents’ acquisition of the dominant literacies valued in the school and the work domains. By engaging in a discussion of these adolescents’ home literacy practices, languages and home backgrounds this study hopes to dispute and counterbalance the discourse of discrimination and deficit which is still a reality in Brazil.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

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