Bringing ethnography to a multimodal investigation of early literacy in a digital age

Flewitt, Rosie (2011). Bringing ethnography to a multimodal investigation of early literacy in a digital age. Qualitative Research, 11(3) pp. 293–310.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794111399838

URL: http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/11/3/293

Abstract

In this article I reflect on the insights that the well established traditions of ethnography can bring to the more recent analytic tools of multimodality in the investigation of early literacy practices. First, I consider the intersection between ethnography and multimodality, their compatibility and the tensions and ambivalences that arise from their potentially conflicting epistemological framings. Drawing on ESRC-funded case studies of three and four-year-old children’s experiences of literacy with printed and digital media,1 I then illustrate how an ethnographic toolkit that incorporates a social semiotic approach to multimodality can produce richly situated insights into the complexities of early literacy development in a digital age, and can inform socially and culturally sensitive theories of literacy as social practice (Street, 1984, 2008).

Viewing alternatives

Metrics

Item Actions

Export

You can export this page using these formats Digital Object Identifier - DOI