[NLA] Announcing three new articles on NALD!

[gdemetrion]

Colleagues:

For those who may be interested, I've recently placed my three latest
published articles on the NALD (National Adult Literacy Database) web site.

All of the essays have a strong Deweyan slant, focusing on his axial concept
of growth.

I can't say that they do much to resolve the complex interplay between
theory and practice that David Hayes has insightfully commented upon.
Rather, in stemming from both, at least from the perspective of the writer,
they represent a wrestling with the interface.  Such an interface is perhaps
irresolvable in any profound sense--particularly when the authenticity of
both practice and theory are taken into account as distinctive modes of
expression carrying their own legitimacy.

In any event, for what it's worth, I offer up the Deweyan concept of
"growth" as having a certain imaginistic power (instead of being "true" in
any literal sense), which can serve as a heuristic (an operative framework)
for digging deeper into the phenomenon of adult literacy.  Perhaps it opens
up some new angles of vision that without such a concept, might not
otherwise be tapped.

That latter view, in my opinion, speaks to the importance of theory in
general--that it opens up experience to new modes of expression that might
not otherwise be available.  Freire was particularly rich in this vein,
whose ideas helped to dethrone the hegemony of the modernization thesis,
which interpreted literacy as a "threshold" phenomenon.  This was viewed as
one of the variables through which "underdeveloped" countries would become
"developed" through industrialization. Not  that Freire was the gospel, but
his ideas opened up a new way of looking at literacy that was not available
based on the literature on modernization, written from the point of view of
its advocates.  His ideas signaled a profound paradigm shift in thinking on
adult literacy.  Perhaps there are some parallels there with the current
"post-industrial" vision of the purposes of adult literacy. Perhaps we need
another paradigm switch based on another theory.

For those less interested in theory, per se, the last essay, containing the
case studies, might be most accessible.  Some would say that the other two
essays are rather dense, though that's not for me to say.

For those for whom it matters, there will be some slight discrepancies
between the web based articles and the journal texts.

The first is titled Practitioner-Based Inquiry:  Theoretical Perspectives,
originally published in 2000 in ADULT BASIC EDUCATION
Volume 10, Number 3, 119-146

It can be accessed at:
http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/George/practitn/cover.htm

The second essay is Reading Giroux Through a Deweyan Lens:  Pushing Utopia
to the Outer Edge, published this year in EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY
Volume 33, No. 1, 57-76

It can be accessed at:
http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/George/reading/cover.htm

The third essay is titled Motivation and the Adult New Reader:  Student
Profiles in a Deweyan Vein, published in Adult Basic Education
ADULT BASIC EDUCATION
Volume 11, Number 2, Summer 2001, 80-108

It can be accessed at
http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/George/motivatn/cover.htm

George Demetrion
Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford


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