Becoming a Reader of Classic Literature Later in Life: Nonacademic Adults in Dialogic Literary Gatherings

• In Event: Dialogic Literary Gatherings: Improving Literacy Standing on the Shoulders of Classic Readings

Abstract

1. Objectives
This paper explores how the participation of non-academic adults in Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLG) promotes pathways for empowerment that go beyond literacy and education, and involve other dimensions of the participants’ life, such as social and political engagement.

2. Theoretical framework
Freire’s theory of dialogic action highlights the role of dialogue for raising awareness and critical consciousness (Freire, 1970). Drawing on this conception, Dialogic Literary Gatherings were created in 1978 in a working-class neighborhood in Barcelona. The purpose was not only to contribute to adults’ literacy learning but also to support their empowerment to lead themselves personal and social transformations. In this regard, Sánchez (1999) stresses that working in adult education with a community perspective means increasing people opportunities at all levels, from improving livings standards to stimulating intellectual and political involvement. For the case of DLG this implies acknowledging the participants’ universal capacity for language and action (Chomsky, 1988; Habermas, 1981), allowing them use their funds of identity (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014) to make meaning of the classic literature and recognizing other women’s (Beck-Gernsheim, Butler & Puigvert, 2003) contributions to social transformation.

3. Methods
Our study has been developed under the communicative methodology of research (Puigvert, Gómez & Flecha, 2011). This approach implied close dialogue between researchers and adult participants in the DLG as a way to identify better how the DLG promoted ways for promoting socio-cultural transformation.

4. Data sources
Data collection involved weekly communicative observations in a DLG in an adult education school during one year of implementation. Four women reported their life experience in the DLG as participants of a communicative daily life story with a researcher. The selection criteria was the participation of these women in the gathering for more than 20 years.

5. Results
Our results show that adult participants in DLG –mainly non-academic women who have been traditionally excluded from decision-making processes in different personal and social spaces- transform their self-concept as readers and learners, engage in reading and enjoying classic literature, and become empowered as social agents. Such empowerment has occurred through the following pathways for engagement:
- DLG allows participants to become confident readers who perceive themselves culturally competent, able to actively participate in scholarly forums.
- Participants become more socially engaged, getting involved in social movements to support marginalized communities.
- The transformative dialogues prompted by reading aloud individually and discussing collectively morals and social values from the classics (i.e. gender issues) mobilize participants to engage in women movements, opening the feminist arena to the inclusion of ‘other women’.

6. Scientific significance
This study proves that DLG do not only make sophisticated readings accessible for women with no academic background, but the dialogic dynamic transforms their self-concept as reader and learners. Through reading and discussing they develop what Flecha (2000) defined as ‘interactive self-confidence’ which mobilize and empower them to engage in a series of socio-cultural and political actions. This challenges the social images often applied on non-academic adults as less capable or politically engaged.

Authors

• Maria Padrós Cuxart, Universitat de Barcelona

• Sandra Girbés-Peco, Univesity of Barcelona

• Guiomar Merodio, University of Barcelona