Literacy Without Schooling Testing for I

Literacy Without Schooling: Testing for Intellectual Effects Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1978). Literacy without schooling: Testing for intellectual effects. Harvard Educational Review, 48(4), 448-461.

we will contrast two perspectives: one represented by the metaphor of literacy as development, and the other, by literacy as practice (449)

Greenfield (1972) suggested that oral language relies on context for the com- munication of messages and is, therefore, a context-dependent language. In con- trast, written language requires that meaning be made clear, independent of the immediate reference. If one assumes that context-dependent speech is linked with context-dependent thought, and context-dependent thought is the opposite of abstract thought, it follows that abstract thought fails to develop in an oral cul- ture. Put the other way around, societies with written language provide the means for decontextualized abstract thinking; and since schooling relies primarily on writ- ten language, those attending school get a greater push toward abstract thought than those not going to school (Bruner, Olver, Greenfield, Hornsby, Kemey, Mac- coby, Modiano, Mosher, Olson, Potter, Reisch, & Sonstroem, 1966, p. 318).      -> Potentially important precedent for Rosa’s language ideologies work.       -> Ask Rosa about written language, code. 

Bruner has presented the most general form of this argument—namely that technologies available in a given culture determine the level and range of abilities in its members. Environments with such symbolic technologies as a written lan- guage “push cognitive growth better, earlier and longer than others” (Greenfield & Bruner, 1966, p. 654).

From this perspective the capacities generated by literacy are seen not merely as different, but as higher-order capacities because they resemble the abilities that psychological theories attribute to later stages in development. For decades, developmental inquiry has been organized around the notion that children’s thinking progresses from the concrete to the abstract. Olson specifically links literacy-related logical operations to Piaget’s final stage of formal operational thought. It is within this framework that statements are made about arrested mental growth in cultures without literacy.      -> A convenient argument; part of project of modernity, potentially justifying colonialism      — essentially, argues that the benefits of literacy are equivalent to abstract thought

We concluded from these data that the tendency of schooled populations to generalize across a wide range of problems occurred because school- ing provides people with a great deal of practice in treating individual learning problems as instances of general classes of problems.

As in previous research, improved performance was associated with years of formal schooling, but literacy in the Vai script did not substitute for schooling. V ai literates were not significantly different from nonlit- erates on any of these cognitive measures, including the sorting and reasoning tasks that had been suggested as especially sensitive to experience with a written language.

Furthermore, and most damaging to the metalinguistic hypothesis, our results showed virtually no correlations among performances on the various probes of metalinguistic ability.

In the psychological literature, writ- ten communication is said to impose cognitive demands not encountered in face- to-face oral communication. In writing, meaning is supposed to be carried entirely by the text; thus, effective written communication requires sensitivity to the in- formational needs of the reader and skill in the use of elaborative linguistic tech- niques. We speculated that Vai literates’ experience in writing and reading letters would contribute to the development of these skills, especially because the ability to communicate in writing with people from different places signifies successful completion of the study of the script.

“You must first make the person to understand that you are informing him through words. Then he will give his attention there. It is the correct way of writing the Vai script.”

If our argument that specific uses promote specific skills is valid, we might expect to find the outcomes that Olson or others predict, but only under conditions evoking these skills. Carrying out critical analyses of text, for example, might promote certain analytic operations with language, whereas rote learning from the same text, or reading it for some other purpose, is not likely to do so. Writing poetry is likely to have different consequences for language skills than preparing a letter to a department store requesting a refund for damaged goods.

     —> Thus, the students who created more elaborate projects may have found authentic uses for CT skills in a way others did not. “a time for telling” in programming. 

the strategy of functional analysis emerg- ing from the Vai research may have particularly useful implications for educa- tional research in our own society. It suggests that different literacy activities need to be analyzed independently. If, as we have demonstrated, particular skills are promoted by particular kinds of literacy practices, we need to know a great deal more about just how literacy is practiced. Studies of the range of reading and writing activities carried out in school, including those outside the official curricu- lum, would be a useful extension of work such as that done by Martin, D’Arcy, Newton, and Parker (1976). We have far fewer precedents, however, for an equally important research task: finding out what people in various communities and walks of life do with literacy—how they use their knowledge of reading and writ- ing, to what tasks they apply it, and how they accomplish these tasks. Such analyses should help us understand the differences between school-based literacy practices and literacy practices unrelated to schooling as well as their possibly different implications for intellectual outcomes. Although attempts to arrive at some overall measures of literacy competencies may be useful for certain comparative purposes, the conceptualization of literacy as a fixed inventory of skills that can be assessed outside of the contexts of application has little utility for educational policies. (Martin, N., D’Arcy, P., Newton, B.,& Parker, R. Writing and learning across the curriculum 11-16. London: Ward Lock Educational, 1966.)      —> Origins of sociocultural analysis of informal learning environments. Ask Brigid for follow-ups to this. 

To the question posed at the beginning of this paper—“Is a college student’s incoherent essay sympto- matic of faulty reasoning?"—our answer would be, “No, it is not a symptom; it is a sign to be evaluated.”

If the educational objective is to foster analytic logical reasoning, that objective should guide the choice of instruc- tional program. It should not be assumed that these skills will follow inevitably from practice in writing essays. Writing essays may be helpful, as may oral prac- tices. This is undoubtedly the common wisdom of the classroom and the educa- tional planner. But it would be helpful to ally this wisdom with the psychological literature on literacy so that the broad conceptual framework informs teaching practice and practice informs the theory. We realize that the kind of program implied by our discussion may seem diffi- cult to attain. The comments of the Soviet psychologist Vygotsky (1934/1978) some fifty years ago on the status of the specific-skill versus mental-development argument of his day offer useful guidance for our research choices today: “Such a matter cannot be dealt with by a single formula of some kind, but rather suggests how great is the scope for extensive and varied experimental research” (p. 34).

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

     —CS 106a:  are active readers better coders? (106a)           — what about replication with respect to computational literacy? There’s a big argument in                     CS professionals about the value of institutional education vs hacker ethos. [support from Y Comb for study?           — Seems like a powerful critique of certain pedagogies: It’s not a developmental project you can complete; it’s a set of practices you need to cultivate. Literacy is there when people are doing it.

          — Studies on digital literacy dependent on print literacy?

**— A possible interpretation of my clusters: Framing situations in computational terms emerges from practices, not just teaching CS. **      —> Follow up with an open coding of the reflections to see if this clustering holds up.       —> Ask Engin about “sillhouette” validity checking, other clustering processes. 

Position literacy communities at the intersection of constructionist tool use (getting thoughts outside the self) (Pillar II), communities of practice (Pillar III), and semiotic interpretation (pillar I). 

CITING THIS

Stanovich, K. E., & Cunningham, A. E. (1992). Studying the consequences of literacy within a literate society: The cognitive correlates of print exposure. Memory & Cognition, 20(1), 51-68.

Tyner, K. (2014). Literacy in a digital world: Teaching and learning in the age of information. Routledge.