There is worldwide significance attached to literacy, witnessed through its feature in Sustainable Development Goals, historically fuelled by the universal and intrinsic value attributed to literacy. Literacy research in the recent decades, however, has taken a ‘social turn’, highlighting instead the social, cultural and ideologically situated nature of literacy practices. This paper, informed by the sociocultural perspectives, critically examines India’s early literacy policies and curriculum frameworks, in order to unpack the colonial underpinnings of the ideas espoused through ‘global’ and ‘digital’ education. It further juxtaposes policy and curriculum initiatives with ground practices by reporting the findings from ethnographic case studies of four grade one students from a resettlement colony in India who attended a low-fee private school in the vicinity. Data collection for the study involved six months of participant-observation in the school, home, and community contexts, and conducting interviews with the focal children, their parents and the class teacher. Findings from the study shed light on the evolving nature of literacy practices and knowledge brokering outside of the school context. It highlights young children’s engagement with multimodal literacies outside the school that are rooted in their identities and cultures. These literacies, which are dynamic, purposeful and employed in agentive manner for purposes of production and reception, contrasts with the standardised, hierarchical and primarily receptive forms of school based literacy. The paper significantly underscores the act of ‘resistance’ encapsulated in these literacies against the broader structures of inequality and hierarchy obscured by the domination of school based forms of literacy.

Authors:
Aabha Rawat, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India

About the Presenter(s)
Ms. Aabha Rawat is currently pursuing PhD from School of Education Studies at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi, India. Her research interests include early literacy, critical literacy, marginalisation and policy analysis.

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