Abstract

This thesis will deal with the social nature of both learning and literacy. It asks the question:
is the feeling of community a necessary part of the process of teaching adult learners how to read
and write. Drawing from New Literacy Studies ( Auerbach 1989, Street 1997, Barton 2001) language
socialization theory (Schieffelin& Ochs 1986), and Lave & Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice
to argue for a situated view on literacy. The empirical data from this paper comes from participant
observation conducted at a community based literacy organization in Montreal. . Drawing from the
experiences of a handful of tutors and learners this thesis underlines the social nature of the
learning process and argues that for adult learners community is central to becoming literate.