ABSTRACT
Many kernel elements of print literacy pedagogy are remarkably resilient, sustained across colonial, postcolonial and industrial curriculum settlements with very different ideological orientations. This chapter describes that a pedagogical economy where literacy education is taken as cultural gift, with reciprocal entitlements and responsibilities. There are elements of this notion of reciprocity in dialogical approaches to radical and democratic pedagogies, process and rhetorical approaches to the teaching of writing, and, interestingly, in attempts to teach reading comprehension using reciprocal teaching and intercultural models. Three decades of research document the interactional, conversational and linguistic features of early literacy teaching. Interactional structures have distinctive cognitive, social and developmental investments and consequences for learners. Literacy is defined in curriculum as a quantifiable psychological or cognitive process or skill. The economic and historical base of social and economic relations establishes the enabling conditions of mode of information, textual production and representation, reception and use.
