A case study of the figured worlds of outcast students: the positioning of adolescent literacy and identity in school

As a growing body of research, adolescent literacy goes beyond early literacy development to study the continuing literacy development of adolescents. A significant influence on this research, sociocultural theory extends understandings of literacy through examinations of social influences, identity development, and meanings of literacy practices. This research examines how outcast adolescents' literacy practices mediate participation and positioning in a school's social worlds. How secondary English classrooms promote literacy, how different adolescent identities make meaning of these literacy practices, the figured worlds adolescents participate in, and the literacy practices adolescents adopt out-of-school help to inform how identity and literacy work to position two girls in the multiple figured worlds they navigate. Findings reinforce theoretical implications of identity, New Literacy Studies and Adolescent Literacy