The argument here is that learning to read for young people in school is not a monolithic process but, rather, consists of multiple and differentiated pathways involving the acquisition of diverse reading practices and cultural ideologies embedded in a broad range of social and cultural contexts. Such a view of learning to read entails…

Describes three dimensions of reading as a social process: (1) all reading events involve a social context, (2) reading is a cultural activity, and (3) reading is a socio-cognitive process. Discusses the implications for classroom reading of these dimensions. (HTH)

Presents four educators' ideas about what the social implications and interactions of schooling will be in the next millennium. Considers conflicting discourses regarding literacy pedagogies, schools offering provocative possibilities for transformational interactions to help more effectively negotiate social and cultural divides, and a fixed…

The use of language in television commercials to promote products and the use of deceptive language in commercials addressing young children are discussed. (JD)

Discusses two sets of social relations involved in reading and writing practices: (1) author/reader social relationships, and (2) participant social relationships. Notes each set of social relationships has implications for issues of authority, power, social identities, definitions of knowledge, emotional relationships, and social-group identity.…

Asks what role miscue analysis might play and how it might be (re)defined, given a view of reading and writing as "complex human activities taking place in complex human relationships." Examines some of the original assumptions underlying miscue analysis, then redefines it by highlighting three aspects of reading and writing:…

New and emerging perspectives of educational contexts of literacy are reviewed that emphasize the inseparability and reciprocal influence of literacy practices with the social and ideological agendas of the communities, institutions, and settings in which the literacy practices are embedded. Research on conversational contexts of literacy…

Examines connections between literacy education as a social activity involving various levels of social relationships and the world of technology and computers, discussing recent research on the social and cultural nature of reading and writing, applying the discussion to the use of computers in classrooms, and concluding that computers in the…

The decontextualized nature of literacy has been a recurrent issue in discussions of the consequences of literacy over the last twenty years. The central thesis of these discussions is that the nature of written discourse itself leads directly or indirectly to changes in cognitive processing, linguistic progressing, cultural development, and/or…