Literacy in transition, literacy at the transitions: (Dis)continuities in literacy’s position in the broader curriculum (Pre-published version)

Abstract

Literacy has been conceptualised and reconceptualised, positioned and repositioned, backgrounded and foregrounded in myriad ways in Irish schools over the past decades and centuries. While it has always tended to dominate school timetables, the lack of variation seen in literacy’s time allocation has not been replicated in the varied roles and purposes that it has held in different iterations of the school curriculum. From the initiation of the Payment by Results programme in 1872, through to the publication of the Primary Language Curriculum in 2015, the nation’s priorities for literacy, as captured in the curriculum, have continued to evolve. Yet one does not need to look back in time to uncover shifting conceptualisations of literacy. Surveying children’s experiences of literacy in the current day, from the time they enter pre-school, to the time they leave post-primary school, we see further variation in the nature of literacy learning at different points in schooling. Varying conceptions of literacy span the spectrum of the formal education system in Ireland, particularly as literacy relates to the broader curriculum, and purposeful communication outside of ‘formal’ literacy time. The current article adopts a longitudinal and cross-sectional lens to examine the role that literacy played, and plays, in the broader curriculum. It does not purport to be conclusive in findings about the nature of literacy instruction during a given time period, or at certain levels of schooling. Rather, it provides an illustrative account of some of the ways that literacy is and was conceived at points of major transition in Irish schooling; historical points of transition in curriculum, and contemporary points of transition in the school system. These transitions serve as an interesting and useful focal point for the consideration of literacy teaching, the broader curriculum, and the connection between the two.