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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM: RESEARCHING LITERACY WITH ADULT 
LEARNERS 
BY ELLAYNE FOWLER AND JANE MACE (EDITORS) 

National Institute for Adult and Continuing 
Education (NIACE) 2005, 21 De Montfort Street, 
Leicester,  
ISBN: 1 86201 223 7, 142 pages.  
http://www.niace.org.uk 

 
Outside the classroom: researching literacy 

with adult learners is another of those interesting 
publications from the National Institute for Adult 
and Continuing Education (NIACE) in the UK that 
take on the important task of linking the theory 
and practice of teaching and researching literacy 
with adult learners.  

Ellayne Fowler and Jane Mace view literacy as 
a social practice and set out to show how that 
theory can assist the practice and the training of 
teachers. They do this by linking aspects of theory 
to life through the use of various examples of how 
learners use literacy in their own lives.  

The book combines a theoretical discussion 
with presentation of a series of portraits of the 
real life experiences of learners. A total of 
nineteen portraits have been researched and written 
collaboratively with learners, who were selected 
from among groups of men and women taking literacy 
classes with the authors. The portraits explore the 
reading and writing lives of learners outside the 
classroom. 

Fowler and Mace have focussed on three key 
theoretical aspects of a social practice view of 
literacy for this book, namely literacy events, 
practices and values; social networks; and literacy 
environments.  

Jane Mace discusses literacy events and 
practices by referring to the work of David Barton 
and Roz Ivanic, drawing out distinctions between 
the two, and draws on Brian Street to include a 
focus on values, attitudes and feelings. Four 
portraits, together with a concluding commentary 



 
are useful examples of the way literacy events, 
practices and values are reflected through people’s 
lives. 

In analysing social networks Ellayne Fowler 
draws on the work of James and Lesley Milroy, Jean 
Lave and Etienne Wenger to show how analysing 
social networks and community of practice can offer 
valuable insights into the literacy practices of 
learners.   

By exploring the notion of literacy 
environments, Fowler is also able to shed  more 
light on the different domains of peoples lives and 
how they impact on learning. She draws on Mary 
Hamilton, Anita Wilson and Heath’s seminal work in 
educationally disadvantaged communities.  

Research is another important focus of the 
book. Fowler and Mace devote the second part of the 
book to research, in particular a discussion of the 
process of research and how research can be used to 
inform teaching practice.  

At a time when so much attention in research 
is on quantitative approaches, it is timely for 
Mace and Fowler to reflect on the research process, 
point to the value of the ‘spirit of ethnography’ 
in their approach and remind us of the importance 
of empowering and including learners in the 
research process - in a way that has value to them 
as well as to researchers and readers.  

The book also addresses some of the ways 
research can be used to inform the practice of 
adult literacy teaching. They draw attention to the 
need for teachers to remember the main reasons why 
learners come into classes. As Castleton suggested, 
it is often about how learners ‘can and want to use 
literacy to bring about changes in their lives’. 

As Stephen Kemmis (2005) points out, a central 
problem in understanding and changing professional 
practice is ‘to recognise and respect the diversity 
of key features of practice’ and his framework 
draws attention to individual features of practice, 
social features, cultural features and material-
economic features. 

This book makes a useful contribution to that 
task and suggests that a challenge for future work 
in this area is to continue to acknowledge and 
include more explicitly, a detailed analysis of the 
social, cultural and material-economic features 



N o t e s  f o r  C o n t r i b u t o r s   
  

 

 

   
L I T E R A C Y  A N D  N U M E R A C Y  S T U D I E S   75 
 

impacting on learners and their learning 
environments.   
 

Reference  

Kemmis, S, (2005) Knowing practice: searching for 
salience, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, vol 
13, no 3, pp 391-426 

 

Andrew Chodkiewicz