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LRDG meetings held in 2004

20 January - Kate Pahl, University of Sheffield

Communicative practices in homes, an ethnographic study

This presentation will draw on a three-year ethnographic study of children's meaning making in the home to argue that by using a social practice model of literacy, it is possible to explore how the habitus is instantiated within text-making. Drawing on Barton and Hamilton's concept of 'ruling passions' and Bourdieu's concept of habitus this presentation will consider how children's text making is infused with the habitus of the home, and reflects social practices and family narratives.

27 January - Researchers from the Literacy Research Centre

Learning Inside and Outside of Educational Settings

In several different projects we have realised we face common issues. In this session researchers on four different projects will discuss how they conceptualise learning inside and outside of educational settings. The four projects are Literacies for Learning in Further Education, Literacy and Health, The Impact of Skills for Life on Learners, and Adult Learners' Lives.

3 February - Jenny Horsman - from Canada

"Too Scared to Learn:" Recognizing the impact of violence on learning

It may seem obvious that experiences of violence will affect a person's attempts to learn in the educational system. However, it doesn't usually seem so obvious that given the high levels of violence in society the education system should change to make it easier for people who have experienced violence to learn and that those of us engaged in education should understand how violence affects learning and take account of this in our teaching. In this talk Jenny Horsman will introduce the research she has been engaged in for the last decade examining the impact of women's and girls' experiences of violence on their learning and exploring possibilities for creating supportive learning environments through projects to introduce new practice.

Jenny Horsman is a community-based theorist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. She has published two books: Something in My Mind Besides the Everyday: Women and Literacy and Too Scared to Learn: Women, Violence and Education. Many of her articles are posted at http://www.jennyhorsman.com

10 February - Zoe Davies

Basic skills provision at Lancaster University

The Staff Learning Centre has been created to help staff at the university to access training and support and is jointly funded by the Union Learning Fund, Lancashire Colleges Consortium and Lancaster University. Zoe Davies will talk about the work the Staff Learning Centre is doing to provide basic skills training at Lancaster University. She will present findings from a learning needs analysis carried out by the Staff Learning Centre and discuss some of the difficulties the centre has encountered in breaking down the barriers to learning.

17 February - Dr Bryan Maddox
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia

'Goody Revisited: Making Sense of Subaltern Literacy and Numeracy Practices
in Rural Bangladesh'

9 March - Bethia McNeil, National Youth Agency

"Informal basic skills provision for young adults: The Young Adult Learners' Partnership research"

The purpose of The Young Adult Learners' Partnership (YALP) is to research and develop effective approaches to learning and personal development among young adults (16+) on the margins of education, training and employment, with the purpose of fostering their capability and integration as young workers, parents and citizens. Bethia McNiel will present YALP's previous and current work in the area of basic skills provision for young adults as well as the background and rationale behind the current research. In addition she will talk about the theoretical problems involved and the findings to date and their implication for the future.

16 March - Amy Burgess

"Expanding New Literacy Studies: New Perspectives"

A number of recent articles and books have taken a critical look at NLS and suggested ways in which the field might develop. I will compare the theoretical perspectives and new insights offered by several writers, focusing particularly on their conceptualisation of the relationship between structure and agency. I will illustrate my talk with examples drawn from my ethnographic research into writing practices in adult literacy education.
* * It would be helpful if colleagues could read the following paper before I give my talk:
Brandt D and Clinton K (2002) 'Limits of the Local: Expanding perspectives on literacy as a socail practice' Journal of Literacy Resaerch 34 (3) 337-356 * * Copies of the paper will be available from Robin in Bowland A63 from Wednesday onwards in the hours 1 - 5.30 p.m.

20 April - Alex Kendall, University of Wolverhampton

'Professional Development'

27 April - Mary Hamilton, Dept of Educational Research, Lancaster University

DOING PRACTITIONER RESEARCH DIFFERENTLY:
Conversation as a Method of Enquiry and Reporting

This session is based on the book by Marion Dadds and Susan Hart which offers seven examples of practitioner research that challenge the norms of academic research and writing. Marion Dadds and Susan Hart write:

"We had both observed that the more mainstream, traditional research approaches do not always suit the needs and available resources of practitioner researchers........ indeed, in some cases, formal knowledge of research methodology could be deskilling rather than enabling...... .When carrying out their own enquiries, some [practitioners] would set aside their own sophisticated analytical and interpretive expertise, only to find themselves less able to think so effectively through the unfamiliar medium of " research methods> ". (Dadds and Hart, 2001 p. 7)

We will discuss one of the studies reported in the book by Jo Geraci. This is a study that aims to represent the experience of people with autism and uses an unconventional dialogic method of writing up the research experience.

Mary Hamilton will introduce the session by summarising the framework developed in the book for understanding and supporting innovation in practitioner research. She will pose the question of whether there are alternative forms of enquiry and reporting that are more appropriate to practitioner-led projects than the mainstream research methodology found in textbooks.

This page is not a complete record of events held in 2004.