Literacy and the Curriculum: Success in Senior Secondary Schooling

This book examines the intersection of literacy, curriculum and classroom practice in the context of the final years of formal schooling. It challenges the educational community to reconsider what counts as valued in literacy, in literacy education research and in literacy–curriculum interfaces. Literacy education has been a key focus in educational policy, research and practice throughout the world. Considerable attention has been directed to date to early literacy education, middle schooling, special needs, basic education for adults, workplace literacy and what previously has been termed the ‘literacies’ of specific areas such as mathematical literacy, scientific literacy and technological literacy. The literacy demands of post-compulsory schooling, where post-compulsory means schooling beyond the minimum legal age for leaving school, have not received comparable attention. More specifically, the relationship between literacy, the curriculum of post-compulsory schooling and classroom practice is little researched. This book redresses this area of need and, in so doing, examines issues of epistemology, changing student cohorts, curriculum diversification and current literacy theories