Local literacies and community spaces: transitions and transfers in the 'learning lives' of youth

The concept of ‘community spaces’ indicated in the title of this seminar relates to places and contexts where students are involved in learning activities, both formal and informal/non-formal and to both online and offline activities. Two aspects are critical in order to get a better understanding of students’ performances and learners’ activities, and which there has been very little focus so far. The first focuses on the relationship between different sites of learning activities, and how the home as a learning arena influences students’ perceptions of learning in schools, and visa versa. A special focus is directed towards technology use inside and outside of schools, and also how issues of science, reading and writing comes up in different contexts, inside and outside of schools. The second focuses on key stages of transition within the education system, being a learner in the education system; from entering the school, through transitions between lower secondary and upper secondary schooling, and from school to working life or higher education. This seminar reports on a current research project conducted in Oslo to study and theorise the transfer of learning between different contexts and community spaces in order to depict the ‘learning lives’ of young people living in one multicultural community of Oslo. The original concept of ‘learning lives’ is used to focus on the growth of pedagogic identities and develops theoretically out of a cultural anthropology account of literacy usage. Our ambition is to offer an analysis that can support learners as they move through key life-transitions in ways that enrich and enhance their ‘funds of knowledge’.