Authors: Kathy Sanford, Bruno de Oliveira Jayme and Tanya Manning-Lewis
University of Victoria, University of Manitoba and Thompson Rivers University, Canada

Edition: Volume 64, Number 3, Special Edition, November 2024

Introduction: Literacy as a unified concept is no longer valid or useful for today’s complex world, where globally we face many challenges and contradictions. Adult literacy is shifting rapidly, and the human need for visually communicating meaningfully and relationally – beyond ‘reading and writing’ – is vital for addressing wicked problems and difficult times. In this paper we ask, “What does ‘literacy’ mean for us now, as we prepare new generations of people, as we address severe health issues, poverty, state conflicts and the climate crisis is looming?” How can expanded understandings of ‘literacy’ offer educational hope and possibility for the many adults who have been shut out of the literacy club? How do we challenge the exclusionary colonial practices of ‘literacy’ and education that leave many bereft and having to settle for lives with limited opportunities and successes? In the adult education practices we employ, we are looking beyond conventional ‘classroom’ and ‘literacy’ viewpoints to develop expanded and inclusive understandings of learning. In this paper, we share stories of encounters we have had with individuals who have, in different ways, been previously excluded from opportunities offered through learning ‘literacy.’ Using an asset-based lens, we consider ways in which these individuals have learned, and ways we have learned from them, as we collectively question the usefulness of colonial conceptions that limit, rank, classify and assign status by particular ‘literacy’ standards.

Keywords: multiliteracies, adult education, social semiotics, international, alternative

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 64:3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.