A Community Literacy Project: Nepal

Reference work entry
First Online:
Part of the Encyclopedia of Language and Education book series (ELE)

Abstract

The concept of community literacy is based on the idea that local meanings and uses of literacy should inform the design and implementation of adult literacy programs and that literacy programs should respond and be flexible to people’s expressed needs. The in Nepal was informed by the sociocultural model of literacy developed within the “New Literacy Studies” (Street 1995) and was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The New Literacy Studies is informed by sociolinguistic and ethnographic studies of literacy. Rather than viewing literacy as an autonomous “skill,” these approaches view literacy and literacies as a diverse social practice embedded in local contexts, institutions, and practices (Collins and Blot 2003; Street 1993). This perspective assumes that literacy programs can provide a public space for the articulation and debate over local “situated” meanings of literacy and provide practical mechanisms to help people to learn and use literacy in real-life situations. The paper discusses some of the tensions between the articulation of “local” meanings of literacy within the wider national and international discourses of development and some of the creative responses that emerged.

Keywords

Community Literacy Project Formal literacy instruction Scribes and Legal Literacy Literacy mediation Local literacy materials Tailor-made materials (TMM) Adult literacy promotion 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of International DevelopmentUniversity of East AngliaNorwichUK

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