Exploring discourses of digital literacy in policy, curricula, and primary school teachers’ narrations in Cyprus

Submitted by: Stavroula Kontovourki
Abstract: The purpose of the presentation is to discuss the ways in which “digital literacy” is formulated as an object of pedagogy at different levels and fields of action within the broader educational terrain. To explore this, discourses on literacy and digital media in primary education are mapped out across official policy mandates, curriculum texts, and primary school teachers’ narrated perceptions in the Republic of Cyprus.
The mapping of these discourses is theoretically grounded in the Foucauldian notion of technologies of power that focuses on how knowledge is produced through a set of ideas that target an object (Fejes, 2008). This grounding helps identify the different techniques that define what may be possible and desirable in particular social situations, and hence subject those who participate to certain ends and dominations (e.g., Foucault, 1982/1997; Luke, 1992). From a methodological perspective, the presentation combines policy analysis and qualitative interviewing that allow the identification of techniques and discourses at the different levels of interest. Archival data comprised of official policies and announcements, circulars, and curriculum texts published by the Ministry of Education and Culture post-2010, which – in the international, Anglophone literature – appears as a period of rapid increase of studies on digital literacies and (early) schooling (see e.g., Flewitt et al., 2014; Kontovourki et al., 2017). Interview data are drawn from a broader research project, initiated as part of COST Action IS1410, that examines teachers’ digital biographies and perceptions. This presentation utilizes data from the study in the Greek-Cypriot context that were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with 22 pre-primary and early primary teachers in 2016-2017.
Thematic analysis across data sets was further informed by Green’s “3D model of literacy” (e.g., Green & Beavis, 2012) to identify discourses on digital literacy within and across official policy, curricula, and teacher perceptions. Of most importance were not only the commonalities and differences across and within fields, but also the gaps and contradictions that emerged when the very notion of digital literacy was situated in the context of literacy learning in contemporary primary school classrooms. In this sense, this presentation discusses Cyprus as a case of how discourses on (digital) literacy flow and are sedimented across domains, and contributes to the first symposium theme (current directions in literacy research, policy and practice) by raising questions about the constrictions and possibilities of expanding the meaning of literacy and literacy pedagogy in primary schooling.
References
Green, B., & Beavis, C. (Eds.) (2012). Literacy in 3D: An integrated perspective in theory and practice. Victoria, Australia: ACER Press.

Fejes, A. (2008). To Be One’s Own Confessor: Educational Guidance and Governmentality. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29, 653-664.

Flewitt R., Messer D. & Kucirkova N. (2014) New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. DOI: 10.1177/1468798414533560.

Foucault, M. (1982/1997). Technologies of the Self. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Michel Foucault: Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (pp. 223-251). New York: The New Press.

Kontovourki, S., Garoufallou, E., Ivarsson, L., Klein, M., Korkeamaki,R.L., Koutsomiha, D., Marci- Boehncke, G., Tafa, E. & Virkus, S. (2017) Digital Literacy in the Early Years: Practices in Formal Settings, Teacher Education, and the Role of Informal Learning Spaces: A Review of the Literature. COST ACTION IS1410. ISBN: 978-0-902831-48-3.

Luke, A. (1992). The body literate: Discourse and inscription in early literacy learning. Linguistics and Education, 4(1), 107-129.

1Presenter Contact Information
Stavroula Kontovourki
Department of Education,
University of Cyprus
P.O. Box 20537
1678 Nicosia
Cyprus
+357-22892930
kontovourki.stavroula@ucy.ac.cy


Short biographical note
Stavroula Kontovourki is Assistant Professor in Literacy and Language Arts Education at the Department of Education, University of Cyprus, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on languages arts teaching methods, language and literacy development, and multiliteracies. Her research interests cover literacy and language arts education, the performance of literate identities in and out of school, digital literacy and multimodality (textual and embodied), literacy teachers’ professional identities, and literacy policy, curricula, and educational change. She is one of the editors of Literacies, Learning and the Body (Routledge, 2016) and has published in international journals and edited volumes.