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Abstract
Abstract
This study used a participatory action research methodology in order to explore influences on literacy development for four women with limited or interrupted formal schooling. The study engaged these four women as co-researchers in the collaborative project of incorporating their perspectives and experiences into curriculum priorities
that aimed to extend their reading skills, and further their literacy development across personal, social, educational and vocational goals. Through the phases of an action research spiral, the co-researchers and researcher/tutor trialled and evaluated curriculum and pedagogical initiatives directed at the priorities expressed by the co-researchers, and informed by current theories of literacy and second language reading.
The study is underpinned by social theories of literacy (Barton & Hamilton, 1998;
Brice Heath, 1983; Gee, 1992; Scribner & Cole, 1981; Street, 1984, 1994) and draws on theorists in second language reading development (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Koda, 2005) and adult learning (Hartree, 1984; Knowles, 1990) to identify priorities in a flexible curriculum tailored to co-researchers' individual aims of extending their literacy in English to support their diverse goals.
The findings locate these women’s literacy experience in global contexts of conflict and human rights transgression that restricted opportunities for first language literacy, and locally in contested views of literacy in community life that limited access to adult literacy instruction in Australia.