The document discusses different conceptions of literacy and illiteracy, contrasting a functional view with a critical view. A functional view sees literacy as teaching skills to help people function in society, accepting existing social structures, while a critical view questions social structures and power relations, conceiving literacy as a means for social and political empowerment.

3. “Illiteracy embodies a language and a set of practices that
underscore the need for developing a radical theory of literacy
that takes seriously the task of uncovering how particular
forms of social and moral regulation produce a culture of
ignorance of stupidity crucial to the silencing of all potencially
critical voices”
Aronowitz

4. 0Functional literacy
0Critical literacy

5. Functional literacy
0 Develops skills (writing – reading)
0 Addresses issues of social purposes in contexts of use
0 Defines the uses of reading and writing to achieve
social purposes in contexts of use
0 Teaches participants to achieve their social objectives
0 Accepts means of communication as something given
and natural
0 Admits the natural status of dominant institutions and
social discourses
0 Helps individuals function within a given society in
order to participate and achieve their own goals

6. Critical literacy
0 Questions the natural status of dominant institutions and discourses
0 Deals with finding out how something works
0 Looks below the surface of things and events, asking questions such as:
1. Why does this exist/happen?
2. What is its purpose?
3. Whose interests does it serve?
4. Whose interests does it frustate?
5. How does it operate?
6. Need it operate like this or could it be done differently and better?
0 Gives powerful tools for developing critical thinking
0 Conceives language as a powerful social practice
0 Develops a critical awareness of social purpose and whose interests are
being served by it
0 Regards critical reflection as a dimension that must be complemented
with action

7. Literacy
vs.
Illiteracy

8. Literacy/Illiteracy
0 They function as a way of labelling and
grading people. It also categorizes people into
educational haves and have-nots
0 Being in the have-not group creates what
Freire calls “a culture of silence”
0 Illiteracy implies a form of political and
intellectual ignorance as well as a possible
instance of class, gender, racial, or cultural
resistance.

9. Models of literacy/illiteracy
From Freire’s point of view: “reading the world
always precedes reading the word”
0 Skills development model
0 Therapeutic model
0 Personal empowerment model
0 Social empowerment model
0 Functional model
0 Critical model

10. Literacy from a
cross-disciplinary
perspective
language education
theory
anthropology sociology
Literacy
Research practice
history psychology
Literacy is a socio-political construct as much as a
linguistic one

11. A theory of language in
context
language
language
Language
as text
as social process
as social practice

12. Critical literacy
•Ideological construct:
it is rooted in a spirit of critique.
“Literacy was a double edged sword” It enables people to participate in
Gramsci the undersatanding and
transformation of their society
It develops forms of
counterhegemonic education
Perpetuation of around the political project of
relations of creating a society of intellectuals
repression and
domination •Social movement:
It is tied to the material and
Self and social political conditions necessary to
empowerment develop and organize
teachers, community
workers, and others both within
and outside of schools.
It takes an active part in the
struggle for creating the
conditions necessary to make
people literate

13. The freireian model of
emancipatory literacy
0 Dialectical relationship between Human
beings – world
0 Language - transformative agency
0 Literacy means a self and socially
constituted agent.
0 Literacy is part of the process of becoming
self-critical about the historically
constructed nature of one’s experience.

14. Critical pedagogy
0 Student’s voice must be heard
0 Students need to be introduced to a language of
empowerment and radical ethics
0 Teachers should provide students with the
opportunity to interrogate different languages or
ideological discourses
0 Critical educators are also learners
0 Students and teachers can dialogue and struggle
together in order to make their respective positions
heard out/inside the classrooms.

15. Percentage of illiteracy in Colombia
according to the real
performance of literate people
in our country, what might
have been the conceptions of
literacy inherent in the
implemented literacy
programs in the latest years?