literacy as social practice

Defining Literacy as Social Practice:

Implications for new literacies research and classroom practice

Framing and designing studies 1.2.Understanding how social order, human agency and endeavor are accomplished

SOCIAL PRACTICE THEORY

[Practices are] forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge. - Reckwitz, 2002: 254

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Literacy as social practice

…Practice always refers to socially developed and patterned ways of using technology and knowledge to accomplish tasks….

[Skills] refer to the coordinated sets of actions involved in applying this knowledge in particular settings.

[T]asks that humans engage in constitute a social practice when they are directed to socially recognized goals and make use of a shared technology and knowledge system.

- Scribner & Cole, 1981: 36

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Literacy is

a set of socially organized practices which make use of a symbol system and a technology for producing and disseminating it .

- Scribner & Cole, 1981: 236

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Technology/ToolsSkills

Knowledge

Socially patterned ways of doing “meaning work” are involved in making sense of the world.

Blogging is a social practice

Blogging isn’t just blogging

Social practice & new literacies research

Tools Skills Knowledge

I’m an average student, Cs, Bs and a couple of Ds in Statistics and Economics (tricky stuff >w<).

Maguma

anime music video remixing

e.g., “Konoha Memory Book”

Tools• Windows “Movie Maker” (& Sony Vegas)• Software for ripping songtracks from CDs• Software for ripping video from DVDs• Online services for converting video clip file

formats• Interest-space profile pages (AMV.org, YouTube)• Etc.

Skills• Developing a new AMV• Locating and downloading anime clips• Being able to convert file formats• Using video effects to further a storyline• Using transition effects• Superimposing still images over moving ones• Using color shifts to convey mood• Syncing video action and music lyrics and/or beat• Experimenting with masking• Etc.

Skills: Masking

From: “Frontlines”

Knowledge• Being an AMV remixer• Attending to what makes a “good” AMV• Responding to comments and providing

feedback to others (AMV.org, YouTube)• Making “action” and “drama” AMVs• Paying attention to other anime fans and their

knowledge and passions– Spoiler alerts– “fan service”– “yaoi-esque” endings

(Relatively) Unobservable

“Well I hope you all enjoy it. Please please PLEASE leave an opinion.”

“i spent a good amount of time on this vid. and i really put alot of heart into this one”

Maguma as a “carrier” of anime music remixing practice & anime fan practice

Classrooms and a social practice conception of literacy

• The Pareto Principle (Shirky 2007; Gee 2013)• Attending to richly descriptive case studies

(cf., Black 2008; Chen 2012; Thomas 2007; Leander and Mills, 2007; Burn, 2009; for more, see Lankshear and Knobel, 2014)

It’s no small thing to take on a particular conception of literacy.

Michele KnobelMontclair State University

knobelm@mail.montclair.eduhttp://everydayliteracies.net

Twitter: netgrrrl

Image Attributions• Slide 3: “Social Practice Workbook”

http://www.psusocialpractice.org/news/• Slide 5:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C0OPvz38kew/UOVP6wJJCxI/AAAAAAAAB7k/WFV4ObSFPc4/s1600/Time+Sqaure+New+York+2013.jpg

• Slide 10: http://www.hungrygirlporvida.com/; http://www.tasteofbeirut.com