Space, place and power : The spatial turn in literacy research

This chapter maps an emergent strand of literacy research that foregrounds place and space as constitutive, rather than a backdrop for the real action. The foregrounding of space and place is steadily increasing in literacy research, as evidenced by the naming of spatial terms in titles and abstracts in literacy research city, urban, rural, river, ghetto, street, environment, and sites. This chapter discusses selected research in literacy studies, which in various ways addresses these themes. It begins by discussing studies that foreground the politics of place and literacy in classrooms and introduce the concept of place-conscious pedagogy through illustrative examples. It then explores place and digital spaces in globalized communication networks