Bringing books to life: A study of southern women\u27s literacies

This study of literacy examines the literacy development of six women from the southern United States. A four-dimensional model of adult literacy development (Lytle, 1991), including beliefs, practices, processes, and plans, frames women\u27s self-selected reading as a particular literacy practice and as it relates to other literacy practices. Data include fieldnotes and transcripts of three individual interviews between the researcher and the readers; discussions with community residents; observations of the women in homes, workplaces and churches; and notes of collaborative interaction with the six informants of the study. Literature from literacy studies, women\u27s studies, and literary theory informs this study. The study has several conclusions. It describes a community where literacy and reading and writing are culturally differentiated entities. The community considers literacy to mean absence of literacy while reading and writing are activities for literate people. Through two case studies, this research indicates that the relationships between literacy beliefs, practices, processes, and plans are dynamic, interactive, and recursive although beliefs and values formed in childhood impact the other three dimensions. Five themes representative of the women\u27s cultural history and their individual literacy development support that conclusion. These themes include childhood storytelling, reading as identity, reading as relationships with others, reading as alternative reality, and reading as accommodative and resistive behavior. Implications for theory, research, and practice are suggested. These include that adults have awareness of their own literacy knowledge supportive of transformative literacy experiences; that classrooms at all levels need to offer adequate role models for women, provide curricula to more fairly reflect women\u27s contributions to society, and develop means by which to confront power issues in classrooms; and that collaborative or emancipatory research is a viable model for lessening power relationships between researcher and researched and supporting continued literacy development