Literacy and the Politics of Representation

ISBN-13: 9780415686167 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Publication date: 07/19/2012 Series: Literacies Edition description: New Edition Pages: 192 Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d) Literacy is a key indicator for comparing individuals and nations in contemporary society. It is central to public debates about the nature of the public sphere, economic markets, citizenship and self-governance. Literacy and the Politics of Representation aims to uncover the constructed nature of public understandings of literacy by examining detailed examples of how literacy is represented in a range of public contexts. It looks at the ways in which knowledge about literacy is created and distributed, the location and relative power of the knowledge-makers, and examines the different semiotic resources used in such representations: images and metaphors, numerical and statistical models, and textual narratives and how they are related to one another. The book focuses on the UK from 1970 to the