Literacy as a social practice in pre-school education: A case study in areas at risk of social exclusion

Abstract

Literacy in urban spaces where there are structural situations of poverty and social exclusion requires an in-depth knowledge of the practices and events that are developed in these spaces. The research aims to describe literacy events and their social value in various domains: home, school, neighbourhood and other communities. The research was carried out according to a collaborative, ethnographic approach following a multiple-case study design. The cases are represented by three preschools from Seville. Data collection was carried out through interviews, participant observation, written documents, photographs, and videos, and concluded with the creation of mapping. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the New Literacy Studies (NLS) framework were used to analyse the information collected. Findings show that the development of literacy can be explained by the way in which each child internalises the social values of reading and writing. Values related to literacies at home, school, neighbourhood and other communities become a key factor in children’s schooling and, on average, in the content, ways and media used for their discourses.