ERIC Number: ED414395
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1997-Nov-21
Pages: 13
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Literacy and Urban Legitimacy: The Case of Political Discourse in an Urban School District.
Case, Karen I.; Oliver, Peter V.
As a starting point in exploring issues of how texts and discourses are affiliated with differing kinds and levels of cultural capital and social power in institutional contexts, this paper considers the experiences of the Hartford (Connecticut) school district to provide definitions of literacy, discourse, and textuality, and their application to urban education, and to address methodology for urban reporting. The political implications of textual research for urban systems are also explored. This exploration of the institutionalizing of urban literacy focuses on discourse as it relates to social and political processes and outcomes, drawing on macrotextual analysis and viewing texts as symbolic actions or means to frame and define a situation. The frame suggested by J. Lemke (1995) of presentational, orientational, and organizational meaning can be applied to the institutionalizing of urban literacy and will be applied to writings from "The Hartford Courant" over a 3-year period. The use of this approach is illustrated through the examination of an article about the school district. When the presentational, orientational, and organizational stance of this type of urban reporting is examined, an intertextuality develops that is deeply political in nature. Public and professional debates in urban systems use systems of intertextuality or sets of preferred discourses. Urban reporting represents this intertextuality and functions as a legitimizing agency that naturalizes or disguises contributions to urban inequities. As textuality becomes a political battleground, the struggle becomes related to critical literacy, reemphasizing the need for educators to think politically about education. (Contains 12 references.) (SLD)
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A