This book traces the development of four literacy discourses over twenty-five years: human
capital cultural critical and feminist literacy. By analyzing four federal educational
policies and their specific references to literacy language instruction and key signifiers of
the kinds of literacy prescribed for teachers and students Mary Frances Agnello describes how
the discourses of human capital and cultural literacy have been and remain predominant over the
lesser well-known discourses of critical and feminist literacy. Tracing the proliferations and
transformations in the meanings of literacy Agnello looks to trends generated by the last wave
of educational reform. She employs a vehicle of literacy policy analysis to locate where power
is exercised to both define and develop literacy in the citizenry at large. As teachers and
students question their positions with respect to these policies they can become more
self-directed promoters of democratic classroom literacy practices.
