Colloquium "Onto-epistemological challenges, Sustainability, Literacies and Development of Agency: Do we need a match or should we just keep on tindering?"
Onto-epistemological Challenges, Sustainability, Literacies and Development of Agency: Do We Need a Match or Should We just Keep on Tindering?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Fabrício Tetsuya Parreira Ono
In societies dominated by the power of algorithms and artificial intelligence, this study focuses on the concept of sustainability, supported by philosophical studies which deal with inter and transdisciplinary issues that cross such ideas, which may construct different meanings according to context. In addition, the assumption of a future “useless class” is contrasted with the development of agency underlain by literacies studies and proposals. Grounded on contemporary illustrations and vignettes, discussions will lead to problematizations and questionings concerning challenges education may face in the near future.
Developing English Teachers’ Agency in the North of Brazil
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Denise Landim
Assuming that agency is a discursive practice and one of the basic premises of an education which forms critical, participative, and transformative agents to live in a society in constant changes due to globalization, neoliberalism and digital technologies, the main objective of this study was to research if agency development implies a critically oriented English Language Teaching (ELT) in global and digital times. In order to reach that goal, we investigated the emergence and conceptualization of English teachers’ agency, in pre-service and in-service education, in their education and in their pedagogical practice in the North of Brazil.
“Profe, Que Joguinho Você Recomenda para o Meu Filho?” : Literacy Apps in the Early Years and the Fostering of Agency and Critique among Pre-service Literacy Teachers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Paula Martinez Duboc
This paper critically discusses literacy education programs in times of a strong revival of structuralist and behaviorist-oriented literacy policies and practices. Leveraged by neoliberal educational agendas, the so-called Science of Reading (SoR) movement seemed to gain even more strength as a salvationist alternative in face of the post-pandemic alarming rise in illiteracy, whose impacts have mostly targeted children and youth from global south countries. Such a gloomy literacy scenario coincides with the mushrooming of a plethora of literacy apps aimed at helping children to improve their literacy skills. Concerned with the fact that most of these literacy apps are not designed under an interdisciplinary and collaborative work between the fields of game design, literacy, and education, I ponder: to what extent do these literacy apps reinforce conventional literacy practices despite all claims of innovation around digital technologies? To what extent do literacy teachers critically position themselves from a pedagogical and ethical perspective whenever using or recommending these literacy apps to families? These are questions which I intend to address through a brief data analysis on some children literacy apps followed by a description on how this debate unfolds in the undergraduate course “Multiliteracies and digital media: implications for language education” as part of the literacy education program from the School of Education at USP (FEUSP).
