Notes on Literacy as a Sociohistorical Phenomenon

Overview

Literacy is a sociohistoric phenomenon that spreads through the circulation of people, practices, and texts. Understanding its contours is essential for effective literacy instruction, because intervening in literacy development also means engaging with history, ideologies, and power. The chapter defines literacy as sociohistorically situated practices, not merely a set of skills, and emphasizes learning from grounded studies of literacy in specific settings to understand under what social conditions literacy can liberate or oppress. It advocates a proactive, critical stance toward literacy to inform socially just teaching.

LITERACY CAN BOTH OPPRESS AND LIBERATE

Literacy has been used to colonize, advance corporate or geopolitical interests, reinforce racial hierarchies, regulate immigration, and perpetuate exclusion, sometimes through violent means. Yet literacy also holds liberatory potential when used to challenge oppressive structures (e.g., Freire’s reading of the world, critical and expressive discourse). The chapter highlights liberatory practices across urban classrooms, programs for marginalized groups, and community-led initiatives, showing that literacy can drive social change as writers engage in action and public discourse. It concludes that educators shape literacy’s consequences and that literacy pedagogy cannot be neutral; moral and political dimensions are embedded in literacy work.

LITERACY AND IDENTITY ARE COCONSTITUTIVE

Literacy and identity mutually inform each other. Identities—class, race, gender, sexuality, disability, citizenship, and more—shape how literacy is enacted and perceived, while literacy practices contribute to identity formation. Recognizing literacy as a political project helps explain access or exclusion for marginalized groups. The idea of “identity kits” (discourse and practices tied to social roles) reframes literacy as something people do, not merely something they possess. Work on self-representation and collective action shows literacy can disrupt systems of oppression through expressive forms (e.g., poetry, rap) and diverse literacy practices, including nonacademic, multimodal, and community-based literacies.

WRITING IS RACIALIZED

Writing is not race-neutral; race becomes attached to writing across time and space. Academic writing, often framed as “standard,” has historically aligned with whiteness and access barriers for nondominant groups. First-year writing can function as an assimilation checkpoint, pressuring students to conform to “white” conventions. Instructors may overlook or devalue oral language practices and dialects of students from diverse backgrounds. Progressive pedagogy uses dialects as resources, supports self-expression and multiple modes of writing, and encourages students to integrate their language varieties with academic discourse, broadening notions of what counts as legitimate writing.

LITERACY IS EMBODIED

Literacy is rooted in bodily experience and is shaped by sensorium, emotion, material relations, and the body’s social labeling. The body acts as an epistemological site, carrying marks of gender, race, ability, age, and other identities, which influence how literacy is read and produced. Illiteracy labels can create barriers, but bodies can also enact resistance by altering genres, tools, or authorship practices. Disability studies and embodied approaches highlight literacy as performative, adaptive, and creatively reconstituted through body-centered practices.

LITERACY IS MATERIAL

Literacy is inseparable from material objects and technologies (e.g., pens, diplomas, printing presses, digital devices, paperwork). Literacies are materialized in things that confer power and legitimacy, and objects travel across borders and contexts, enabling new literacies (e.g., digital literacy in transnational families). Multimodality expands meaning-making beyond text, linking material forms to belonging and identity. Literacy’s materiality creates dynamic power relations and requires attention to how things shape literacy practices and access.

LITERACY IS AN ECONOMIC RESOURCE

Literacy intersects with economy: it can fuel growth, require investment, or become a commodity valued differently over time and place. Sponsorship by corporations or institutions can privilege certain literacies and reinforce inequities. Global neoliberalism can devalue migrants’ literacies or constrain their economic returns. Across history, the market value of literacy shifts with technology, policy, and demand, leading to unequal access and opportunities. The chapter also presents examples of individuals leveraging literacies for economic gain, illustrating how writing and related practices can be monetized in varied contexts.

CONCLUSION: SOCIALLY JUST LITERACY PEDAGOGY ADDRESSES POWER, CONTEXT, AND HISTORY

To teach literacy justly, educators must foreground how literacy practices are embedded in power, context, and historical conditions and how they connect across space and time through multiple modalities. A socially just pedagogy centers on critical discussions of ideology, power, and oppression, and it foregrounds learner authoring and agency. Three guiding questions for teaching are proposed: (1) How does literacy function as an oppressive force in students’ lives? (2) How can embodied and performed literacies challenge inequities? (3) What pedagogical possibilities can literacy foster to create a more socially just world? The chapter highlights practices such as testimonio, biliteracy crossing social borders, and disability-aware literacy as examples of liberatory pedagogy, and it emphasizes play, creativity, and community-based approaches as means to reimagine literacies and empower learners.