Meanings of literacy in the intersection of religious and secular practices: examining local and global changes in a Brazilian bairro

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (259) ◽  
pp. 107-131
Author(s):  
Maria Lúcia Castanheira ◽  
Brian V. Street

Abstract This article contrasts data from two ethnographic studies carried out at different points in time with working class families in Trombetas, a bairro on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The first study was conducted from 1988 to 1991, and the second in 2009. We develop two main themes: (1) the changing meanings of literacy in relation to the shift from Catholicism to Neo-Pentecostalism; and (2) the growing use of new technologies and multimodal means of communication in association with religious secular and commercial practices. For the first theme, we employ the notion of indexicality as a way of analyzing the changes taking place in this context. We point to the significant presence of Evangelical churches in Trombetas in 2009, and to the specific ways in which the reading and writing practices of some members of two families were bound up with religious beliefs and identities. In addressing the second theme, we draw attention to the meanings associated with the new technologies and the multimodal resources drawn upon by different family members in 2009. The article foregrounds the advantages that accrue from adopting a Literacy Studies perspective – one that focuses on the ways in which research participants, of different generations, actively pursue their own purposes (religious, secular or commercial), drawing on the modes of communication available to them and one that reveals the diversity and complexity of actual practices on the ground in local settings such as that of Trombetas.

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 293-315
Author(s):  
Diana Walsh Pasulka

A contemporary movement in Christian religious thought advocates for the recovery of pre-modern exegetical practices. Wesley Kort, Paul Griffiths, and Catherine Pickstock are among several theorists who support a return to pre-modern reading and writing practices as an answer to the crisis of modernity. In the context of scripture studies, the works of Kort, Griffiths, and Pickstock can be understood as examples of analyses that focus on the performative elements of scripture. Their stress on memorization, recitation, and reading reflect the influence of studies of the performative function of scriptures by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and William Graham. Kort, Griffiths, and Pickstock take this line of argument even further, by arguing that is it the very loss of scripture as performance that has inaugurated a loss of the sacred in modernity. This development thus tackles the philosophical issues at stake between secularism and theology and moves beyond the localized analysis of the meaning of specific scriptures. The following analysis places this development in an historical and philosophical context by revealing the theoretical precedents that each scholar draws upon, specifically the later writings of Martin Heidegger.


Author(s):  
George Moore

I daresay I shall get through my trouble somehow.’ Esther Waters is a young, working-class woman with strong religious beliefs who takes a position as a kitchen-maid at a horse-racing estate. She is seduced and abandoned, and forced to support herself and her illegitimate child in any way that she can. The novel depicts with extraordinary candour Esther's struggles against prejudice and injustice, and the growth of her character as she determines to protect her son. Her moving story is set against the backdrop of a world of horse racing, betting, and public houses, whose vivid depiction led James Joyce to call Esther Waters ‘the best novel of modern English life’. Controversial and influential on its first appearance in 1894, the book opened up a new direction for the English realist tradition. Unflinching in its depiction of the dark and sordid side of Victorian culture, it remains one of the great novels of London life and labour in the 1890s.


Author(s):  
John Bodel

The study of ancient reading and writing practices must begin with inscriptions. This chapter charts the recent debates about the concept of literacy in the Roman world. Setting out from the archaic period, it shows how inscriptions have a key role to play in any assessment of the difficult question of levels of literacy, while at the same time highlighting some of the methodological problems involved in such enquiries. The chapter concludes with a brief exploration of topics ripe for further study .


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Renata Garcia Campos Duarte

Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a importância da utilização de impressos operários enquanto fonte para as pesquisas em história da educação, analisando alguns debates e ideias educacionais presentes em dois jornais operários de origem associativa: O Labor, da Confederação Auxiliadora dos Operários, e O Confederal, do Centro Confederativo dos Operários. As associações responsáveis pelos periódicos foram constituídas nos primeiros anos de existência de Belo Horizonte, cidade construída para sediar a nova capital do Estado de Minas Gerais. Os impressos operários, por sua vez, são entendidos em suas particularidades tendo-se em vista as suas características, os quais divulgavam algumas ideias e debates, como os referentes ao campo educacional. A partir da análise dos jornais foi apurada a existência de demandas e propostas por educação para todas as classes sociais, visto que o ensino em Belo Horizonte não era ofertado a todos, ou se era oferecido, não alcançava as classes sociais menos favorecidas.The working class press and the History of Education: an analysis of the contributions of the newspapers The Labor and The Confederal to the History of Education in the initial years of Belo Horizonte. This article aims to discuss the importance of the use of working class press as a source for research in the history of education, analyzing some debates and educational ideas present in two workers' newspapers of associative origin: The Labor, of the Auxiliary Confederation of Workers, and The Confederal, of the Confederative Center for Workers. The associations responsible for the periodicals were constituted in the first years of existence of Belo Horizonte, city built to host the new capital of the State of Minas Gerais. The working class periodicals, in turn, are understood in their particularities in view of their characteristics, which disseminated some ideas and debates, such as those concerning the educational field. From the analysis of the newspapers, the existence of demands and proposals for education for all social classes was verified, whereas the education in Belo Horizonte was not offered to all, or if it was offered, it did not reach the less favored social classes. Keywords: Workers associations; Belo Horizonte; Education; History of education; Working class press.


Authorship ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriaan Van der Weel

The evolution of our literate culture across the millennia has been marked by clearly identified and well-documented milestones in the history of reading and writing technologies. Changes in literacy, understood as the sum of reading and writing practices, have always followed such milestones at some remove. Not only are they much more diffuse in character and much harder to identify and describe, but they stand in a tenuous cause-and-effect relationship to the technologies in question. This article makes a plea for a stronger awareness of the effects of technology on our literate culture. Reading has always received a fair amount of attention (with the history of reading being a prominent subdiscipline of the field of book studies), but it should be recognized that its corollary, authorship, is a central, and, as digital technology is becoming ubiquitous—at least in the Western world—, increasingly important part of our literate culture, too. With Web 2.0 technology enabling more people than ever in history to write for public or at least semi-public consumption, the concept, definition and status of authorship is in need of radical revision.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Clark

The pressure of family identity and politics affected more than one generation of Burneys. Beyond Frances Burney, and her intense relationship with her father Charles Burney, were other family members who also felt the pressure to “write & read & be literary.” These tendencies can be seen most clearly in the works of juvenilia preserved in the family archive. A commonplace book bound in vellum has been discovered that preserves more than one hundred poems, mostly original compositions written by family and friends. The activity of commonplacing reflects a community in which reading and writing are valued. Collected by the youngest sister of Frances Burney, they seem to have been copied after she married. The juvenile writings of her nieces and nephews preponderate, whose talents were encouraged, as they give versified expression to their deepest feelings and fears. Literary influences of the Romantic poets can be traced, as the young authors define themselves in relation to these materials. Reflecting a kind of self-fashioning, the commonplace book helps these young writers explore their sense of family identity through literary form. This compilation represents a collective expression of authorship which can inform us about reading and writing practices of women and their families in the eighteenth century.


E-Structural ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 82-96
Author(s):  
Qorinta Shinta

Abstract. The English Course in Public Health Faculty of Diponegoro University is expected to develop the reading skills of the students through various exercises. However, its main goal is to help students identify simple, complex and compound sentences and how to organize them into good paragraphs. As in the Faculty of Public Health, the English Course is only given once in the first Semester, the exercises in each of the lesson is very compact which consists of Reading Text, Comprehension Questions, Word Study, Grammar and Usage, and Writing, in short these are called integrated exercised. Some students did very well on the exercises while others did not. The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between the students’ performance in integrated exercises and their academic achievements of Diponegoro University Students majoring in Public Health who took English Course. The academic achievements in this study refer to their Mid-Term test Scores. Method of the Study: in the study of Diponegoro University Freshmen majoring in Public Health, a descriptive qualitative method was used to determine whether or not there is a correlation between reading and writing exercises and their academic achievements. The instruments used are the scores of 3 taken from exercises in unit 1, 2 and 3 and 1 Mid-Term test. The population of this research is 73 Public Health students of Diponegoro University taking English 1 Course. The data analysis result shows that Sig score is 0,000 < 0,05 therefore Ho is declined and Ha is accepted, which means there is a correlation between reading and writing practices scores and mid test scores 0.403 which is positive. Therefore, it can be concluded that the higher their writing scores are, the higher mid test scores will be.Key words: correlation, English course, integrated exercises, mid-term testAbstrak.  Mata kuliah Bahasa Inggris di Fakultas Kesehatan Masyarakat diharapkan mampu mengembangkan ketrampilan membaca mahasiswa memalui berbagai Latihan soal-soal. Namun, tujuan utama dari mata kuliah ini adalah membantu para mahasiswa menindentifikasi kalimat – kalimat sederhana, kompleks dan majemuk serta bagaimana membentuk kalimat – kalimat tersebut dalam bentuk paragraph. Karena mata kuliah Bahasa Inggris hanya disajikan satu kali, maka latihan-latihan soal pada setiap unit dibuat sangat padat yang terdiri dari Teks Bacaan, Pertanyaan tentang bacaan, Kosakata, Grammar dan fungsinya, serta Latihan writing. Ada mahasiswa yang bisa mengerjakan Latihan soal dengan sangat baik tetapi ada juga yang kesulitan. Tujuan dari peneltian ini adalah untuk melihat korelasi antara Nilai dari Latihan soal reading dan writing serta prestasi akademik dari Mahasiwa baru Universitas Diponegoro jurusan Kesehatan Masyarakat. Prestasi akademik dalam hal ini adalah nilai Mid-term test mereka. Dalam penelitian pada mahasiswa baru Universitas Diponegoro jurusan Kesehatan Masyarakat, digunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif untuk menetukan apakah ada atau tidak ada korelasi antara Latihan soal reading dan writing dengan prestasi akademik mereka. Instrumen yang digunakan pada penelitian ini  adalah 3 nilai yang diambil dari 3 latihan soal Unit 1, 2 dan 3. Jumlah populasi adalah 73 Mahasiswa Kesehatan Masyarakat Universitas Diponegoro yang mengambil mata kuliah Bahasa Inggris 1. Hasil dari data analisis menunjukkan bahwa nilai Sig  0,000 < 0,05  sehingga Ho ditolak dan Ha diterima, yang berarti ada korelasi antara nilai Latihan writing dengan nilai ujian tengah semester 0.403 positif. Sehingga bisa disimpulkan bahwa semakin tinggi nilai mereka pada Latihan writing akan semakin tinggi juga nilai mereka dalam Ujian Tengah Semester.Kata kunci: korelasi, mata kuliah bahasa Inggris, nilai latihan soal terpadu, nilai Ujian Tengah Semester


Author(s):  
Alexey D. Shmatko ◽  

In modern conditions of transformation of the region’s economy and its digitalization as a result of the development of new technologies, global changes are taking place in the field of employment. The article indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for global changes in employment and the use of educational technologies. The problem of training and retraining of personnel looks especially urgent. The purpose of such a process should be to improve the adequacy of the qualities of the labor force to the requirements of the labor market. Educational activity is considered as one of the ways to overcome the problems in the field of employment of the population of the region, statistical data are provided, a variety of forms and methods of teaching that are possible for use in modern conditions are considered. Special attention is paid to the development of the professional potential of regional enterprises in conjunction with the choice of the type of training. The article proves that in modern conditions it is necessary to move from the management of functional subsystems in business to management using a competency-based approach. A detailed analysis of the competence-based paradigm of training in the context of regional needs of the labor market is given.


2009 ◽  
pp. 19-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uta Papen

In this paper, I use a social practices view of literacy to challenge dominant conceptions of health literacy. Health literacy is frequently defined as an abstract skill that can be measured through individual performance tests. The concept of health literacy as a skill neglects the contextual nature of reading and writing in health care settings. It risks ignoring the many ways in which patients access and comprehend health information, make sense of their experience and the resources they draw on. The paper presents findings from a study of forty five literacy and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students’ health-related reading and writing practices in the north-west of England. I suggest that health literacy needs to be understood as a situated social practice and that it is a shared resource frequently achieved collectively by groups of people, for example families. I conclude with some reflections on the implications of my research for adult education practice.


2004 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhadra Ramachandran

In its position statement, the International Reading Association states that technology needs to be an integral part of literacy instruction. This article describes two ways of integrating technology into an EAP curriculum that focuses on building students' reading and writing skills. . In essence, the goal of the article is to demonstrate that teachers can quite easily integrate the existing content with assignments and activities that involve the use of technology without necessarily adding new pieces to the curriculum.


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