Jolene Malavasic

"A Life Within a Life": Adolescents' Perspectives on Friendship and Literacy Jolene Malavasic

KurztextAdolescence is a particularly significant phase of life when young people try to figure out who they are. What is often a difficult task for adolescents is learning to express their multipe identities in personally meaningful and a socially acceptable way. Identity construction is a social and political matter because it is a teenager's struggle to develop a sense of self within a social sphere. This has implications for eduactional practice as well as for the social and cultural climate created in schools. It is importnat for literacy researchers as well as teachers in secondary schools to understand the multiple relationships and literacy practices adolescents engage in that support their identity construction. This book explores the ways adolescents' academic literacy practices in multiple settings intersect with the learning they are expected to do in school. It considers what strategies adolescents employ to complete what is required, and where they gained knowledge of these strategies. Studying these relationships and noting ties to the various literacy practices and identity construction of these adolescents may provide important information for those who are looking to make a better connection to instruction in academic literacy learning.