Literacy Development in A Multilingual Context: Cross-cultural Perspectives / Edition 1

ISBN-13: 9780805824421 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Publication date: 08/01/1998 Pages: 328 Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) During the past decades, literacy has gradually become a major concern all over the world. Though there is a great diversity in both the distribution and degree of literacy in different countries, there has been an increasing awareness of the number of illiterates and the consequences of being illiterate. However, literacy is no longer seen as a universal trait. When one focuses on culturally-sensitive accounts of reading and writing practices, the concept of literacy as a single trait does not seem very feasible. A multiplicity of literacy practices can be distinguished which are related to specific cultural contexts and associated with relations of power and ideology. As such, literacy can be seen as a lifelong context-bound set of practices in which an individual's needs vary with time and place. This volume explores the use of literacy outsid