ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that literacy is not simply a set of decontextualised skills which can be codified, measured and audited. Rather, literacy refers to a range of highly contextualised social practices in which people engage. The chapter introduces four different discourses of literacy-as decontextualised skills, as a technology, as socially situated practices and as multiliteracies to show the relationships among ideology, theory and practice. In fact, literacy may be viewed in relation to learning-as a cognitive or thinking skill, as a social practice or, in relation to power struggles, as an emancipatory act. The chapter explores some of the research which is associated with these ideologies in terms of four discourses of literacy: literacy as autonomy; literacy as technology; literacy as social practice; and multiliteracies. It is argued that the teaching of 'autonomous skills' should be replaced with developing a range of contextualised social literacy skills and practices.
