Projects / Programmes
CULTURAL AND SYSTEM FACTORS OF READING LITERACY IN SLOVENIA
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.01.00 |
Social sciences |
Educational studies |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H100 |
Humanities |
Documentation, information, library science, archivistics |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.03 |
Social Sciences |
Educational sciences |
reading culture, readingliteracy, information literacy, public libraries, school libraries, education, book publishing, book selling
Researchers (10)
Organisations (4)
Abstract
Reading culture consists of notions, beliefs, norms, messages about reading which are present in society with the purpose of encouraging reading, improving attitude towards reading, both in learning situations and everyday life. It's influential factor in reading literacy (RL) which is defined as understanding, use and reflection of written texts to achieve individual's goals, development of his/her knowledge and potentials and co-operation in society. Reading culture is shaped within the entire society, part of which are also public education and library systems. Both try in various ways to develop both reading literacy and its close companion, information literacy (IL), defined as an amalgam of knowledge and abilities for acquisition, working with, and using information on the basis of which the individual solves various problems. Connections and relations between both literacies are dealt with, among others, by Novljan (2011), Ramirez (2002) – in both cases we speak about developing transferable competences which can be used in any situation. It is a conglomerate of knowledge, abilities, skills, values, in the centre of which we find information, which are joined in the concept of information literacy, the key literacy of 21st Century (Bawden, 2001). New educational spaces are hybrid, hypermedia, electronic, web-based – in such environment individuals learn from analog and digital sources and increasingly become active and independent in creation of their knowledge. Thus today IL consists also of other technology-based literacies (mobile, media, computer, digital literacies). These are more complex literacies: metaliteracy (Mackey and Jacobsen, 2014), transliteracy (Andretta, 2009), multimodal literacy (Cordes, 2009), visual literacy (Vasquez, Troutman & Comer, 2010) which also need to be part of education. IL and RL have a deciding role in lifelong learning and are part of s.c. human capital which is connected with social and economic success od individuals and entire society. Level of IL and RL is a more reliable indicator of economic and social welfare as length of education, also, higher level of literacy correlates with higher probability of continuing education, better learning achievments, later higher income and more active lifestyle and participation in social, political and other activities (PISA, 2015). Earlier development of reading and information competences strongly improves possibilities for their better development and more succesful use in later years (Stričević, 2007, Farmer and Stričević, 2011).
Libraries play an important role in development of reading and information competences. School and public libraries are most important here due to their involvement with formal and informal education. These libraries have different tasks and missions, as well as users, however, some parallels can be seen among them: one is development of reading and information competences. Both types of libraries aim to develop lifelong learning competences, encourage personal development and democratic society values; all crucial in the information society. These are also among formal learning goals in public education. In school, these competences enable for the pupils quality learning, personal development and later acting ad informed and responsible citizens. For teachers they enable to achieve taxonomically higher learning goals. In the context of formal education these competences must first be expected from teachers, librarians – only this enables their development in children and youth. Here we stress the importance of children literature, aimed at children in pre-reading stages, early reading stages and at the stage of development of reading with understanding. Special emphasis is given to wholistic reading of picture books (Haramija and Batič, 2013, 2014, 2015). Studies find that teaching IL is most succesful when based on problem learning with realistic challenges which enable children to identify with them. Infor
Significance for science
The project brings new knowledge and findings in the field of building and promotion of reading literacy and reading culture in Slovenia. For the first time ever it connects the until now separate areas of librarianship and education. Precisely the area of reading literacy proves that these are very intertwined areas with many common objectives, which should bring a close and intensive cooperation. Based on the data collected, especially in the first two stages of the project, we have already done some of the analyses and offered some conclusions and recommendations. But all of our data and results can be the basis for further research and analyses. Also the methodological conclusions are aimed at further empirical use, which means another (perhaps cyclical) research on public libraries, but especially the first evaluation study of school libraries.
Significance for the country
Reading literacy and reading culture have a major impact on society as a precondition for the development of the individual, and also the development of society. Therefore, our results and recommendations have development potential also for Slovenian society and the country. We developed recommendations for the improvement of reading literacy and reading culture at the national level in conjunction with the education and library areas, but also in terms of changes in social attitudes towards reading. We have also prepared proposals for measures to support and strengthen the active role of libraries in the development of literacy and reading culture. Most of that is possible without additional funding, but would produce results as achieved by the other countries that have introduced such measures and improved the reading literacy of their populations. It is high time to change the attitude towards reading literacy because reading literacy is the basis for the functioning of the human (and society). It is important to emphasize that reading literacy and reading culture are extremely complex concepts and that the recommended measures are medium to long-term oriented and systemic as well as interdepartmental oriented, relate to one another, and which could only be carried out jointly and in a longer time period, all to establish a positive "vicious circle" and to achieve changes in reading literacy and reading culture. With short strokes without wider social and interdepartmental orientation the condition can not be permanently improved. So actually we are talking about the wider social (or national) agreement regarding the condition and progress in reading literacy and reading culture in Slovenian and systemic action on the basis of this consensus.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2015
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
