Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community

Barton, David and Hamilton, Mary (2012) Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community. Routledge, London. ISBN 0415691745

Abstract

Local Literacies is a unique detailed study of the role of reading and writing in people’s everyday lives. By concentrating on a selection of people in a particular community in Lancaster, England, the authors analyse how they use literacy in their day-to-day lives. It follows four people in detail examining how they use local media, their participation in public life, the role of literacy in family activities and in leisure pursuits. Links are made between everyday learning and education. The study is based on an ethnographic approach to studying everyday activities and is framed in the theory of literacy as a social practice. This Routledge Linguistics Classic includes a new foreword by Deborah Brandt and a new framing chapter, in which David Barton and Mary Hamilton look at the connections between local and global activities, interfaces with institutional literacies, and the growing significance of digital literacies in everyday life. A seminal text, Local Literacies provides an explicit usable methodology for both teachers and researchers, and clear theorising around a set of six propositions. Clearly written and engaging, this is a deeply absorbing study and is essential reading for all those involved in literacy and literacy education.