Books by Ibrar Bhatt
This Element examines the semiotics of Sino-Muslim heritage literacy in a way that integrates its... more This Element examines the semiotics of Sino-Muslim heritage literacy in a way that integrates its Perso-Arabic textual qualities with broader cultural semiotic forms. Using data from images of the linguistic landscape of Sino-Muslim life alongside interviews with Sino-Muslims about their heritage, the author examines how signs of 'Muslimness' are displayed and manipulated in both covert and overt means in different contexts. In so doing the author offers a 'semiotics of Muslimness' in China and considers how forms of language and materiality have the power to inspire meanings and identifications for Sino-Muslims and understanding of their heritage literacy. The author employs theoretical tools from linguistic anthropology and an understanding of semiotic assemblage to demonstrate how signifiers of Chinese Muslimness are invoked to substantiate heritage and Sino-Muslim identity constructions even when its expression must be covert, liminal, and unconventional.
Digital Methods for Social Sciences: An Interdisciplinary guide to research innovation, 2015
Academics Writing: The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation, 2019
Approaching academic assignments as practical controversies, this book offers a novel approach to... more Approaching academic assignments as practical controversies, this book offers a novel approach to the study of digital literacy. Through in-depth accounts of assignment writing in college classrooms, Bhatt examines ways of understanding how students engage with digital media in curricular activities and how these give rise to new practices of information management and knowledge creation. He further considers what these new practices portend for a stronger theory of digital literacy in an age of informational abundance and ubiquitous connectivity.
Looking also at how institutional digital learning policies and strategies are applied in classrooms, and how students may embrace or avoid imposed technologies, this book offers an in-depth study of learner practices. It is through the comprehensive study of such practices that we can better understand the efficacy of technological investments in education, and the dynamic nature of digital literacy on the part of students charged with using those technologies.
Publications by Ibrar Bhatt
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2024
Postdigital Science and Education, 2024
In the era of postdigital linguistics, contemporary culture, language practices, and discourse ac... more In the era of postdigital linguistics, contemporary culture, language practices, and discourse across nearly every aspect of human activity are so deeply shaped by forms of digitalisation, that its influence becomes most apparent when it is absent. For those of us invested in linguistic research—whether in applied linguistics, literacy studies, social semiotics, or other cognate fields—it has become more vital than ever to critically examine the evolving complexities of postdigital meaning-making.
Over the past two to three decades, language researchers have been striving to grasp these intersections, but much of this work has, understandably, focused on what was ‘new’ about language phenomena brought about by digital media. However, while a digital-analogue disparity is one of many aspects of a postdigital conversation, it is perhaps the least significant for applied linguistics.
Teaching in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, 2024
This Point of Departure 'kicks off' a process that we hope will elicit submissions for a Special ... more This Point of Departure 'kicks off' a process that we hope will elicit submissions for a Special Issue to mark the 30th anniversary of Teaching in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives. The theme of the issue will be to debate the meanings of the concept 'critical' or 'criticality' or 'critique' and its associated uses such as 'critical perspectives', 'critical thinking' and 'critical literacy' in higher education and the implications of these debates for teaching. We will invite contributors to interrogate the definitions, uses and import of these terms, particularly in the context of conducting and writing about research on teaching theory and practice in higher education for this journal. Despite its pervasiveness in higher education discourse, the meanings of the concept remain vague and implicit, such that they can function as mechanisms of exclusion and domination, for example when assessing students (Stables 2003; Gravett, Taylor, and Fairchild 2024; Taylor et al. 2023) or reviewing submissions for publication (Bozalek and Romano 2023; Taylor et al. 2023). More specifically, we hope to clarify for ourselves and for potential authors how we might meaningfully rethink and redescribe the concept in contemporary higher education contexts that are shifting and unstableat many levelsexistential, institutional, disciplinary, epistemological, technological, cultural and planetary. As editors and reviewers of the journal, we also hope that contributions to the Special Issue will challenge not only how we teach, but also how we frame and manage the journal and thus open up, enrich, and diversify our coverage of research on teaching that adopts a critical perspective. Context By stating in its purpose and scope, that it hopes to be responsive to its shifting global and local contexts, Teaching in Higher Education follows Paulo Freire's well-known adage that reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually (re)reading the world (Freire and Macedo 1987). A key question then becomes, through what lens do we re-read the world? Below we touch on a few pressure points that we (the authors) think are important as we try to reread the contemporary situation.
Postdigital Science & Education, 2023
Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education, 2023
Literacy researchers across various perspectives have demonstrated a notable agility in respondin... more Literacy researchers across various perspectives have demonstrated a notable agility in responding to the emergence of digital technologies and their impacts on literacy practices. As digital technologies permeate human existence, writing and other literacy practices occur in postdigital literacy ecologies. Examining how literacy is bound up postdigitally in everyday life offers opportunities to comprehend the complex relationships between technology, society, and individuals. It also reflects ongoing efforts in Literacy Studies to understand the social, epistemological, and ideological nature of mediatized representation as occurring at the level of everyday literacy.
Cite as:
Bhatt, I. (2023). Postdigital Literacies. In: Jandrić, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_15-1
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2023
What we in this article describe as ‘Sino-Muslim heritage literacies’ have existed in China for a... more What we in this article describe as ‘Sino-Muslim heritage literacies’ have existed in China for as long as there have been Muslims in the region. (Since the 7th century according to the best evidence.) The community’s religious and heritage literacies can incorporate a systematic Arabic representation of Chinese, systems of Chinese characters representing Arabic pronunciation, and more contemporary digitalised manifestations of heritage literacy in everyday life. Using a social practice approach to literacy, this paper reports on multi-generational interviews, artefact collection, and ethnographic observations with two families in Xi’an (Shaanxi, China) to explore how heritage literacy practices maintain a presence in Sino-Muslim life through traditional systems of community and religious education and contemporary social and material networks. We discuss what these empirical cases reveal about literacies in Sino-Muslim religious life, with respect to how heritage is adapted or diminished across generations. We also argue that it is crucial to situate Sino-Muslim heritage literacy in spaces beyond rigid and state-defined ethnic and religious discourses which tend to confine the identity of Sino-Muslims into officially designated categories. Doing so, we contend, has useful theoretical and methodological import, and can shed light on inquiry about heritage literacy in other minority settings.
International Journal of Educational Research, 2022
This article examines how international shifts in research writing, including performance policie... more This article examines how international shifts in research writing, including performance policies and competitive research evaluation regimes, are creating a new set of expectations upon academics in Indonesia. Utilising a social practice approach to literacy, and with a cross-disciplinary sample of twenty-two academics at both private and public universities, we explore how earlycareer academics in Indonesia transition to research productivity. We investigate the tools and resources academics draw upon, and how academic success, prestige, and internationalism are conceptualised. We note that academics must amalgamate new literacy practices to contend with multiple and conflicting demands on time, abilities, allegiances, the double-bind of local versus international research impact, as well as inequalities of experience constituting peripheries within an already existing periphery.
Teaching in Higher Education, 2022
Higher education's 'Language Problem' Globalisation, for which language is a pivotal instrument, ... more Higher education's 'Language Problem' Globalisation, for which language is a pivotal instrument, is defined by Giddens (1990) as the 'intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities' (64). Though it is a contested terrain, of globalisationsfrom above and from below (Torres 2009), there are both negative and positive effects on any society. The globalisation of higher education has elevated the international status of colonial languages, such as English, to the status of a global academic lingua franca, with universities today both collaborating and competing on a worldwide scale in the pursuit of knowledge production. In many international contexts, English has emerged as the language of choice for those undertaking and offering university education, and, subsequently, has become not only a valuable commodity in the global economy (O'Regan 2021), but also a language associated with reproducing certain epistemological stances and worldviews (Santos 2014). The imposition of a powerful language as a medium of instruction is far from a 'neutral' pedagogical decision. Rather, it is a profoundly political and cultural dilemma for people who are compelled to learn it and use it for teaching within higher education. Its imposition can also elicit sentiments of cultural erasure, occupation, and identity loss (Skuttnabb-Kangas et al. 2009), and lead to linguistic and cultural displacements (Phillipson 2017). Language, therefore, carries much more than communicative value. It creates mechanisms of symbolic power (see Badwan 2020), and can act as a tool for symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1991). This brings to the fore what we refer to in this editorial as higher education's 'Language Problem'.
The Epistemology of Deceit in a Postdigital Era: Dupery by Design, 2021
In this chapter, we take our cue from Machiavelli to explore whether deceit by those who govern u... more In this chapter, we take our cue from Machiavelli to explore whether deceit by those who govern us is good for the polity. We argue that it is not: all forms of deception carry great risks that infect social and political relations. It is particularly harmful when these deceits are conducted in online platforms, given the speed at which lies, fake news, misinformation, disinformation, and other such epistemic vices spread. Bad faith and bad politics lead to bad consequences: polarisation, mis/distrust, and anger, which opportunistic politicians ruthlessly exploit in social and mass media. To help us argue why the suspension of ethical conduct in politics and online media can rarely be justified, and why deceit is corrosive of trust, we draw on a number of analyses: strategic disinformation campaigns; the consumption of mass and social media driven by dis/mistrust; Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism and Bok's examination of lies; and the 'polariser's toolkit'. We suggest that an alternative to the tactics of the polariser is the humanist toolkit: humanising propaganda based on empathy, and, naturally enough, an education that critically and extensively engages in digital epistemologies.
To be cited as:
MacKenzie, A. & Bhatt, I. (2021) ‘Bad Faith, Bad Politics, Bad Consequences: The Epistemic Harms of Online Deceit’, in MacKenzie, A., Rose, J. & Bhatt, I. (Eds.) The Epistemology of Deceit in a Postdigital Era: Dupery by Design, Springer [Postdigital Science & Education Book Series]. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-72154-1
Postdigital Science and Education, 2019
Postdigital Science and Education, 2019
In this paper we examine digital literacy and explicate how it relates to the philosophical study... more In this paper we examine digital literacy and explicate how it relates to the philosophical study of ignorance. Using data from a study which explores the knowledge producing work of undergraduate students as they wrote course assignments, we argue that a social practice approach to digital literacy can help explain how epistemologies of ignorance may be sustained. If students are restricted in what they can know because they are unaware of exogenous actors (e.g. algorithms), and how they guide choices and shape experiences online, then a key issue with which theorists of digital literacy should contend is how to educate students to be critically aware of how power operates in online spaces. The challenge for Higher Education is twofold: to understand how particular forms of digital literacy practices pave the way for the construction of ignorance, and to develop approaches to counter it.
This is the accepted manuscript (author version), to appear in a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education on “Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of ‘alternative facts’: re-examining the contribution of higher education” [February 2019].
Cited as:
Bhatt, I. & MacKenzie (2019) Just Google it! Digital literacy and the epistemology of ignorance, Teaching in Higher Education (special issue on “Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of ‘alternative facts’: re-examining the contribution of higher education”), Vol. 24
Permanent link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1547276
Chapter for The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy (2019)
Authors:
Ms Sadia Khan, University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC, USA) sadiak@email.sc.edu
Dr ... more Authors:
Ms Sadia Khan, University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC, USA) sadiak@email.sc.edu
Dr Ibrar Bhatt, Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK) i.bhatt@qub.ac.uk
Abstract:
As modes and types of information have evolved in the digital age, the umbrella term of curation has come to cover increasing types of information management practices—from the technical work of museum specialists and scientists, to everyday online search tasks and social media use. This chapter examines curation as a practice of harnessing existing information, filtering and contextualizing it through the application of criteria which assess and promote belief, and then re-presenting it. Regardless of whether curation is performed by humans or algorithmically by machines, it is the intentional justifications made in the filtering process which link information to knowledge and make curation an act of agentive meaning-making. Since curators hold the power to change narratives through the (re-)contextualization of information, the filtering of information can be a source of controversy. Corporate-driven algorithmic filters, information ‘bubbles' and other potential sources of misinformation can all act as mediating agents in the curation process. Keen discernment over the reliability of text becomes critical to the outcome of its re-contextualization. As stewards of information and producers of knowledge, digital curators must cultivate discernment in their curation practices as a means of safeguarding information and advancing knowledge-creation.
To be cited as:
Khan, S. & Bhatt, I (forthcoming) ‘Curation’, chapter in International Encyclopedia of Media
Literacy, edited by Renee Hobbs and Paul Mihailidis, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.
Chapter for:
Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.) Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and ... more Chapter for:
Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.) Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation. New York: Peter Lang. (Due to publisher April, 2016).
To be cited as:
Bhatt, I. (in press). Classroom digital literacies as interactional accomplishments, In ‘Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation’, Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.), New York: Peter Lang (due April, 2016).
"de Roock, Bhatt, and Adams seek to bridge the gap between changing literacy practices and resear... more "de Roock, Bhatt, and Adams seek to bridge the gap between changing literacy practices and research methodologies in the field of Literacy Studies. Expanding the discussion of ‘digital methods’, they detail and discuss approaches to the collection, management, and analysis of their multimodal data of classroom literacy activities." [from the abstract]
Forthcoming (2015) chapter in Snee, H., Hine, C., Morley, Y., Roberts, S. & Watson, H. (eds.) 'Digital Methods for Social Sciences: An Interdisciplinary guide to research innovation', Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
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Books by Ibrar Bhatt
Looking also at how institutional digital learning policies and strategies are applied in classrooms, and how students may embrace or avoid imposed technologies, this book offers an in-depth study of learner practices. It is through the comprehensive study of such practices that we can better understand the efficacy of technological investments in education, and the dynamic nature of digital literacy on the part of students charged with using those technologies.
Publications by Ibrar Bhatt
Over the past two to three decades, language researchers have been striving to grasp these intersections, but much of this work has, understandably, focused on what was ‘new’ about language phenomena brought about by digital media. However, while a digital-analogue disparity is one of many aspects of a postdigital conversation, it is perhaps the least significant for applied linguistics.
Cite as:
Bhatt, I. (2023). Postdigital Literacies. In: Jandrić, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_15-1
To be cited as:
MacKenzie, A. & Bhatt, I. (2021) ‘Bad Faith, Bad Politics, Bad Consequences: The Epistemic Harms of Online Deceit’, in MacKenzie, A., Rose, J. & Bhatt, I. (Eds.) The Epistemology of Deceit in a Postdigital Era: Dupery by Design, Springer [Postdigital Science & Education Book Series]. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-72154-1
This is the accepted manuscript (author version), to appear in a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education on “Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of ‘alternative facts’: re-examining the contribution of higher education” [February 2019].
Cited as:
Bhatt, I. & MacKenzie (2019) Just Google it! Digital literacy and the epistemology of ignorance, Teaching in Higher Education (special issue on “Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of ‘alternative facts’: re-examining the contribution of higher education”), Vol. 24
Permanent link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1547276
Ms Sadia Khan, University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC, USA) sadiak@email.sc.edu
Dr Ibrar Bhatt, Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK) i.bhatt@qub.ac.uk
Abstract:
As modes and types of information have evolved in the digital age, the umbrella term of curation has come to cover increasing types of information management practices—from the technical work of museum specialists and scientists, to everyday online search tasks and social media use. This chapter examines curation as a practice of harnessing existing information, filtering and contextualizing it through the application of criteria which assess and promote belief, and then re-presenting it. Regardless of whether curation is performed by humans or algorithmically by machines, it is the intentional justifications made in the filtering process which link information to knowledge and make curation an act of agentive meaning-making. Since curators hold the power to change narratives through the (re-)contextualization of information, the filtering of information can be a source of controversy. Corporate-driven algorithmic filters, information ‘bubbles' and other potential sources of misinformation can all act as mediating agents in the curation process. Keen discernment over the reliability of text becomes critical to the outcome of its re-contextualization. As stewards of information and producers of knowledge, digital curators must cultivate discernment in their curation practices as a means of safeguarding information and advancing knowledge-creation.
To be cited as:
Khan, S. & Bhatt, I (forthcoming) ‘Curation’, chapter in International Encyclopedia of Media
Literacy, edited by Renee Hobbs and Paul Mihailidis, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.
Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.) Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation. New York: Peter Lang. (Due to publisher April, 2016).
To be cited as:
Bhatt, I. (in press). Classroom digital literacies as interactional accomplishments, In ‘Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation’, Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.), New York: Peter Lang (due April, 2016).
Forthcoming (2015) chapter in Snee, H., Hine, C., Morley, Y., Roberts, S. & Watson, H. (eds.) 'Digital Methods for Social Sciences: An Interdisciplinary guide to research innovation', Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
Looking also at how institutional digital learning policies and strategies are applied in classrooms, and how students may embrace or avoid imposed technologies, this book offers an in-depth study of learner practices. It is through the comprehensive study of such practices that we can better understand the efficacy of technological investments in education, and the dynamic nature of digital literacy on the part of students charged with using those technologies.
Over the past two to three decades, language researchers have been striving to grasp these intersections, but much of this work has, understandably, focused on what was ‘new’ about language phenomena brought about by digital media. However, while a digital-analogue disparity is one of many aspects of a postdigital conversation, it is perhaps the least significant for applied linguistics.
Cite as:
Bhatt, I. (2023). Postdigital Literacies. In: Jandrić, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_15-1
To be cited as:
MacKenzie, A. & Bhatt, I. (2021) ‘Bad Faith, Bad Politics, Bad Consequences: The Epistemic Harms of Online Deceit’, in MacKenzie, A., Rose, J. & Bhatt, I. (Eds.) The Epistemology of Deceit in a Postdigital Era: Dupery by Design, Springer [Postdigital Science & Education Book Series]. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-72154-1
This is the accepted manuscript (author version), to appear in a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education on “Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of ‘alternative facts’: re-examining the contribution of higher education” [February 2019].
Cited as:
Bhatt, I. & MacKenzie (2019) Just Google it! Digital literacy and the epistemology of ignorance, Teaching in Higher Education (special issue on “Experts, knowledge and criticality in the age of ‘alternative facts’: re-examining the contribution of higher education”), Vol. 24
Permanent link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1547276
Ms Sadia Khan, University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC, USA) sadiak@email.sc.edu
Dr Ibrar Bhatt, Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK) i.bhatt@qub.ac.uk
Abstract:
As modes and types of information have evolved in the digital age, the umbrella term of curation has come to cover increasing types of information management practices—from the technical work of museum specialists and scientists, to everyday online search tasks and social media use. This chapter examines curation as a practice of harnessing existing information, filtering and contextualizing it through the application of criteria which assess and promote belief, and then re-presenting it. Regardless of whether curation is performed by humans or algorithmically by machines, it is the intentional justifications made in the filtering process which link information to knowledge and make curation an act of agentive meaning-making. Since curators hold the power to change narratives through the (re-)contextualization of information, the filtering of information can be a source of controversy. Corporate-driven algorithmic filters, information ‘bubbles' and other potential sources of misinformation can all act as mediating agents in the curation process. Keen discernment over the reliability of text becomes critical to the outcome of its re-contextualization. As stewards of information and producers of knowledge, digital curators must cultivate discernment in their curation practices as a means of safeguarding information and advancing knowledge-creation.
To be cited as:
Khan, S. & Bhatt, I (forthcoming) ‘Curation’, chapter in International Encyclopedia of Media
Literacy, edited by Renee Hobbs and Paul Mihailidis, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.
Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.) Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation. New York: Peter Lang. (Due to publisher April, 2016).
To be cited as:
Bhatt, I. (in press). Classroom digital literacies as interactional accomplishments, In ‘Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation’, Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.), New York: Peter Lang (due April, 2016).
Forthcoming (2015) chapter in Snee, H., Hine, C., Morley, Y., Roberts, S. & Watson, H. (eds.) 'Digital Methods for Social Sciences: An Interdisciplinary guide to research innovation', Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
Cited as: Bhatt, I. and de Roock, R. (2013). Capturing the Sociomateriality of Digital Literacy Events, Research in Learning Technology, Special Issue: Scholarship and Literacies in a Digital Age, Vol. 21 (4) doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21.21281
[note: this paper is sometimes cited as ‘2014’ but it actually belongs to the 2013 volume]
JISC WELL (Workforce Engagement in Lifelong Learning) Project
University of Bradford
January 2010
As part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and to secure funding from research councils, academics are expected to demonstrate that their work has economic or social impact beyond academia. This 'impact agenda' is one of the ways in which scholarly research may engage with the notion of social justice. However, impact may be more complex in nature than is accounted for in research assessment exercises, and may be interpreted in different ways across different disciplines, with some lending themselves to social justice more readily than others.
The data presented in this paper draws on interviews with academics at three different universities and in three disciplinary areas: Mathematics, History and Marketing. We discuss how they interpret policies requiring them to demonstrate economic and social impact, and how this interacts with their views on the wider role of academics in society.
The findings of the project indicate that there is no unified notion of social justice across the disciplines, and that understandings of this concept, including how easily it can be achieved and the extent to which it is prioritised by the institution, influence the choices academics make in their writing practices. For example, although many of our participants talked about the importance of making their research accessible or “making a difference”, the perceived beneficiaries of this included commercial companies and government agencies. Some interpreted impact in terms of financial transparency, seeing this as a form of social justice towards students or taxpayers.
Academic discipline emerged as a complicating factor in understandings of serving society, with impact being seen as more difficult to achieve in some disciplines than others. Furthermore, efforts to engage in social justice-related activities were also at times compromised by competing priorities such as demands on participants’ time.
Overall, the findings indicate that the valued forms of knowledge creation in the working lives of our participants are complex and contested. The ways in which social justice is conceptualised by our participants and how it serves as a driver for the choices they make, interact with their disciplinary traditions, their career stage, and personal priorities, as well as how they interpret policy on impact.
This paper reports on preliminary findings from an ESRC-funded research project which ethnographically explores the writing practices of academics in the organisational landscape of the modern university. The focus is on knowledge creating activities, much of which are exemplified in academics’ writing practices, and how these are instantiated through material artefacts and technologies.
The focus of this paper is the utility of ‘technobiographic’ accounts as one component of the methodology employed. A technobiography is presented as way to research lived experience with digital media, phases of change over time, and how and why particular habits of use emerge. Through an account of our preliminary findings, we argue that technobiographies are a vital window into academics’ lived experiences with technology and the subtle and nuanced ways in which practices of knowledge creation are contested.
To be cited as:
Bhatt, I. & McCulloch, S. (2015). Being an academic today: the dynamics of knowledge creation in the contemporary University, paper presented at the Quadrangular Conference 2015 'Organisational Practices within Contemporary Landscapes' Monday 14th September, Management School, Lancaster University.
This research adopts a multi-method ethnographic approach involving classroom observations, a multimodal recording of a digital writing event in process, and finally a semi-structured interview to analyse Sara’s applications of digital literacy in her daily life.
Data show that Sara’s endeavour to mobilise her social digital literacy practices into a classroom-based literacy event allow her to successfully make the link between her own everyday digital literacy practices and the requirements of the course. The relationship, therefore, between domains and digital literacy practices is complex and messy as such enactments of ‘translations’ disrupt the college’s attempt to ‘stabilise’ institutional digital
literacy which it valorises in the classroom domain.
It is argued that a ‘social practice’ approach to digital literacies, along with Actor-Network Theory sensibilities, allows researchers to observe and the sensitivity of classroom-based digital literacy events to the layered multiplicity of their contexts. Finally, I contend that such research, when conducted in multiple case-study form, provides a basis for understanding how learners’ social digital literacy practices can be mobilised as resources for learning across increasingly porous institutional boundaries."
http://prezi.com/odeeid-ab4lw/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
http://ibrarspace.net/2014/11/12/under-the-hood-of-assignments-talk-at-lancaster-university/
http://www.srhe.ac.uk/events/details.asp?eid=130
To be cited as:
Bhatt, I. (2013). The sociomaterial workings of a college writing assignment, The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) Annual Research Conference 2013 (reviewed proceedings), ‘Experiencing higher education: Global Trends and Transformations’ (Dec, 2013).
To be cited as:
Bhatt, I. (2013). Multilayered and multimodal: capturing literacy events in classrooms, The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) Newer Researchers’ Conference 2013 (reviewed proceedings), Dec 2013.
This PhD research explores assignment writing tasks in three separate Further Education classroom contexts. I approach the assignments as practical controversies as learners navigate their way through a course of study. Specifically, I attend to the ecology of digital literacy practices which emerge through the completion of the assignments by problematising the impact of cyberspace on classroom activities, as the learners undertake their work assisted by whatever digital media are to hand. I argue that connectivity of the Internet and deployment of digital media in classrooms contribute to emergent sociomaterial assemblages, or ‘actor-networks’, exploration and elucidation of which are key to understanding the literacy practices which instantiate them. This research addresses what these new sociomaterial assemblages look like, and the types of digital literacy practices arising from them.
Drawing on recent work in Literacy Studies and actor-network theory, I uncover the complex and close relationship between the personal/informal literacy practices of learners and the digital demands imposed by normative classroom culture and policies. More broadly, I show that an assignment is an ‘assemblage’ which is tied together by political and managerial decisions, economic imperatives, teachers’ aims and practices, learner habits of use, material artefacts and their properties, etc. All of these agencies shape a certain choreography of digital literacy practices arising during classroom tasks; practices which can instantiate a tension between a normative classroom dramaturgy and a more anarchic learner bricolage.
Findings of this research will inform policies on digital learning and benefit educational practice through in depth accounts of the digital habits and practices of learners’ life worlds, and how they align with classroom assignment tasks. By understanding learner practices it is possible to better understand digital innovations in education, the extent to which learners embrace or avoid imposed technologies, and how such practices re-shape assignments as evolving pedagogic forms.