Literacy Practices and Perceptions of Agency: Composing Identities

In this book Bronwyn Williams explores how perceptions of agency—whether a person perceives and feels able to read and write successfully in a given context— is critical in terms of how people perform their literate identities. Drawing on interviews and observations with students in several countries, he examines the intersections of the social and personal in relation to how, and crucially why, people engage successfully or struggle painfully in literacy practices and what factors and forces they regard as enabling or constraining their actions. Identifying such moments and patterns can help teachers and researchers rethink their approaches to teaching to help facilitate students’ sense of agency as writers and readers.