Literacy Practices and Identity Development in Education

Literacy practices and identity development in educational settings are deeply interwoven, reflecting how individuals come to see themselves as learners, writers and communicators. Contemporary scholarship views literacy not merely as a technical skill but as a social practice through which learners negotiate multiple identities—cultural, linguistic, racial and digital. Research highlights the ways in which home and community literacies shape classroom identities, how power relations influence access to print and multimodal resources, and how learners deploy language, imagery and technology to assert agency and belonging. Key themes include the role of family and community narratives in identity construction, the use of digital and STEAM literacies to challenge marginalisation, and the transformative potential of multimodal and critical approaches to classroom literacies. Across global contexts, educators are called to recognise and validate diverse literacy repertoires, to foster inclusive spaces where learners can author their own stories and to understand the dynamic interplay between sociocultural context and self-concept.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Literacy Practices and Identity Development in Education publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in literacy practices and identity development in education across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Sociocultural literacy: An approach that views reading and writing as social practices shaped by cultural, historical and institutional contexts.

Translanguaging: The process by which multilingual speakers draw on their full linguistic repertoire to make meaning, negotiate identity and engage with texts.

Multimodal literacy: The ability to interpret and produce meaning through multiple modes, including visual, auditory, gestural and spatial resources.

Identity construction: The dynamic process through which learners develop a sense of self in relation to social, cultural and educational practices.

References

1. A Metasynthesis of Family Literacy Scholarship: Countering and Constructing Narratives about BIPOC Families and Communities. Reading Research Quarterly (2024).
2. Normalizing Black Students/Youth and their Families' Digital and STEAM Literacies. The Reading Teacher (2023).
3. A critical multimodal discourse analysis of drawings to ascertain identity and self-concept. South African Journal of Childhood Education (2023).