Open Thinkering

Literacy practices: a matter of community

• New Literacies, AI Literacies, digital literacies, New Literacy Studies, Stephen Downes
Top-down view of three people pointing at a laptop screen on a dark wooden table.

My work on digital literacies has recently developed into work on AI Literacies. As I mentioned in my doctoral thesis, being ‘literate’ isn’t a threshold concept, but means being “part of a community of literate enquirers”.

Stephen Downes, someone so influential on my career and thinking that I thanked him in my thesis, has critiqued this stance on a number of occasions. Most recently, this was in the guise of a post at OLDaily, which is short enough to quote almost in its entirety:

There has been a digital ton of stuff written about AI literacy in recent weeks and I have to confess I’m uncomfortable with most of it. To see what I mean, let’s return to the base case: good old-fashioned literacy (GOFL). You know: reading and writing. Doug Belshaw’s post here [link] offers two points of comparison (I’m not singling him out, just using him as an example of a wider trend). First, he says, “imagine what (literacy) might look like for (adult) engineers and developers compared with children of primary school age.” Well it would be the same thing, wouldn’t it? And the child would simply be much less literate. Because the child and engineer are using the same language. Belshaw also says, “we included both safety and ethics because both are needed for using AI in a responsible and trustworthy way.” Are safety and ethics part of GOFL? No – these are separate subjects. Including safety and literacy is just a way of sneaking (a particular set of) values into the definition of literacy.

My understanding of Stephen’s position is that GOFL is a stable set of skills consistent across time and context. On this view, literacy should not be conflated with safety or ethics, which would risk embedding particular values into the definition of literacy. For Stephen, then, literacy is fundamentally about the ability to read and write, and differences in literacy are matters of degree, not kind.

I respect this view and recognise the value in keeping the definition of literacy clear and focused. I also think that our perspectives may not be not mutually exclusive, but instead highlight different aspects of what it means to be ‘literate’.

My approach is shaped by research in the area of New Literacy Studies (NLS) which emerged in the 1980s and is closely related to Etienne Wenger-Trayner’s work on Communities of Practice. As such, I see literacy as inseparable from the social contexts in which it is practised. In my thesis I quoted Allan Luke saying:

Literacy is a social technology. That is, literate communities develop varied social, linguistic and cognitive practices with texts. These require the development and use of implements, ranging from plumes and ball point pens to keyboards. The objects and products of such practices and tools are recoverable texts arrayed on tablets, notebooks or other visual displays. (Introduction to Tuman, 1992, p.vii)

That is to say communities: decide what a ‘text’ consists of, use implements to create such texts, and arrange for texts to be ‘recoverable’ by various means.

Adherents of NLS argue that literacy is not just a set of individual skills but, as Brian Street and James Paul Gee noted, a social practice shaped by culture, history, and community. Communities of Practice theory goes further in explaining how learning and literacy happen through participation in social groups.

Becoming literate, in this sense, means gradually joining and contributing to a community of practice, where the meaning of this literacy is negotiated and shared. This is why I say that literacies are “socially-negotiated” and “context-dependent.”

Some examples to illustrate the point

If we look at some examples, perhaps this view becomes clearer:

  • Open Source Software Communities: there are specific literacy practices involved in documenting code, communicating through commit messages, and participating in community forums. So being “literate” in these communities means understanding both the technical aspects and the social norms that govern contribution and collaboration.
  • Academic Disciplines: Each field of scholarship has its own literacy practices: that is to say, there are specific ways of reading, writing, and communicating knowledge. A physicist and a literary critic may both be highly literate in their fields, but each would likely struggle with the literacy practices of the other’s discipline. I’d argue that this demonstrates how literacy is tied to membership in specific communities of inquiry.
  • Professional Communities: Teachers develop shared literacy practices around everything from assessment practices to pedagogical approaches. These practices evolve over time and are passed on to new members through both formal and informal means. They are contextual as they may differ quite markedly between countries, or even between regions within a country.

What should we include in definitions of ‘literacy’?

While sometimes its difficult to see the social nature of literacy in an analogue setting, it’s much easier to see in an online, digital world. Digital literacies involves understanding how to communicate, collaborate, and create in ways deemed appropriate and safe within various online communities. Ethical considerations are not separate to literacies, but instead are part of what it means to be literate in these spaces.

When we look at how digital identities form in online communities, it’s easy to see that literacy practices and identity development are intertwined. Young people learning to participate in online spaces simultaneously develop literacy practices while forming their digital identities. The ways they learn to express themselves, interact with others, and navigate digital environments shape both their literacy and their sense of self.

I understand that putting everything within the remit of literacy might be problematic, and might risk imposing a particular ideological perspective. However, I’d argue all literacy practices already contain implicit values and power relations. The question is whether we make these explicit or leave them unexamined. Traditional print literacy (GOFL!), for example, has historically privileged certain ways of knowing and communicating over others.

Erm, so… what?

You may be reading this and think that this is a rather arcane topic of conversation. But actually, I think understanding literacy as community membership has significant implications:

  • Schools, in my view, should not be teaching ‘literacy skills’ in isolation, but rather designing learning experiences that connect students with communities of practices. Just as when I was a teacher and had my History students blogging, collaborative projects with real audiences gives a purpose, shared context, and helps develop skills.
  • Organisations developing digital literacies should, instead of focusing solely on technical skills, emphasise participation in digital communities. They should help people understand the social norms and practices that govern different online spaces.
  • Assessment on this view is not something that can be measured using standardised rubrics, but rather be related more to evidence of meaningful participation in relevant communities of practice.

Next steps

As Stephen points out, there is a lot of stuff coming out about AI Literacy at the moment. Having read a lot of it, I would argue that a lot of it is problematic and misguided. Hence the aim of this post is not only to respond to Stephen’s notion of GOFL, but it also provides a link to be able to point people towards when I disagree with the logic of the ‘framework’ they are suggesting.

More soon!

Image: John Schnobrich