ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the materialist philosophical and historical analysis of the policy focus on early intervention programs for print literacy. It explains the direct impact of economic and cultural globalisation and new technologies on the material conditions for adolescence and youth. The chapter argues that educational systems and government policies are struggling with the consequences of these changes: new forms of identity, technological competence and practice, the reorganisation of work, and new life pathways for children and adolescents. It describes the emergence of evidence of different life pathways, different forms of identity and skills – and to track the educational responses to new discourse formations and issues. A political economy of literacy education: there is a general tendency for crises to arise at times of major cultural, economic and social upheaval; and that crises may act as political and rhetorical means for other restructurings of power or institutional relations.
