Living literacy: Rethinking development in adulthood
Abstract This article argues that understanding literacy development in adulthood requires rethinking current assumptions about the needs and capabilities of so-called low-literate adults, evaluating conflicting conceptions of literacy, and exploring participatory approaches to learning and teaching through which adults may empower their own literacy development in daily life. To frame and be informed by such an agenda for inquiry, researchers and practitioners need to construct richer conceptual frameworks that take into account adults' beliefs, practices, language processes, and plans. This process of theory building calls for new relationships between adult learners and their own knowledge and literacy, between teachers and learners, and between researchers and the researched.