Literacy and Education

by James Paul Gee

Literacy and Education tells the story of how literacy―starting in the early 1980s―came to be seen not as a mental phenomenon, but as a social and cultural one. In this accessible introductory volume, acclaimed scholar James Paul Gee shows readers how literacy "left the mind and wandered out into the world." He traces the ways a sociocultural view of literacy melded with a social view of the mind and speaks to learning in and out of school in new and powerful ways. Gee concludes by showing how the very idea of "literacy" has broadened into new literacies with words, signs, and deeds in contexts enhanced, augmented, and transformed by new technologies.

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2014

About the author

James Gee is a researcher who has worked in psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, bilingual education, and literacy. Gee is currently the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University. Gee is a faculty affiliate of the Games, Learning, and Society group at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is a member of the National Academy of Education.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review of Gee's thinking over the last 40 years! Excellent resource.

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A situated literacy theory analog to Lave & Wenger's situated learning theory. Fuck yeah