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new literacies, New Literacies

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Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory

Synonyms

New Literacies Theory; Digital Literacies; Literacy and Technology; Digital Literacy Environments; Literacy Practices

Introduction

How new literacies are defined and perceived, and how they are addressed, has important implications for both how to educate and what to include in educational curricula. This entry explains how definitions of literacy have changed, provides views and definitions of new literacies, and argues for a need to see new literacies from the perspective of a dual-level theory.

Defining literacy has always been challenging and controversial. For example, earlier definitions related to literacy have defined reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game (Goodman 1976), a transaction between reader and text (Rosenblatt 1994), a building up of skills-based, mechanical processes (Flesch 1981), or a fusion between readers and writers (Shanahan 1990). While these and other definitions can be applied to our changing world of literacy, they come largely from a...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Charles K. Kinzer

  2. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Donald J. Leu

Authors
  1. Charles K. Kinzer
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  2. Donald J. Leu
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Correspondence to Charles K. Kinzer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Michael A. Peters

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

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Kinzer, C.K., Leu, D.J. (2016). new literacies, New Literacies. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_111-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_111-1

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