Hilary Janks's Literacy and power is an important contribution to our understanding of “critical literacy” and issues relevant to both literacy theorists and to teachers who try to make theories useful in classrooms. Although Janks is writing from the vantage point of a unique geographic and linguistic setting (multilingual Johannesburg, South Africa), her analysis, examples, and personal experiences offer insights and strategies that are potentially relevant in many other contexts.
The first two chapters (“Turning to literacy” and “Orientations to literacy”) explain the historical, political, and ideological foundations of the author's approach to literacy and political power. Janks outlines the historical context of “critical literacy studies” and discusses the contradictions and conflicts in the field. The middle six chapters define, compare, and then apply the interdependent themes of domination, access, diversity, and design. For each theme, Janks offers first a theoretical analysis and historical explanation of the political concept, and then concrete examples of the concept in practice, with specific classroom assignments—all furthering a critical literacy and empowerment approach to teaching. The final chapter, “The future of critical literacy,” concludes with suggestions for ways to address current problems in the field. The rigorously historical and theoretical tools Janks uses do not detract from the book's function as a work of pedagogical engagement. The text is rich with assignment ideas, images, charts, and graphs, which concretely illustrate literacy's relationship to empowerment for underprivileged and marginalized people in multicultural and multilingual contexts.
Literacy and power is clearly aimed at teachers and researchers who work in linguistically diverse settings, and scholars who may be new to the field of literacy studies will find refreshingly plain language that explains the historical, ideological, and theoretical foundations for critical literacy. This wide overview of the field also provides questions and ideas for graduate students' research at every turn. For scholars and researchers—both outside and within critical literacy studies—Literacy and power is conscientiously and generously illustrated with charts, graphs, and images from the popular culture and media of South Africa. Yet the visual richness of Janks's examples and illustrations is also a potential weakness of the text: the charts, graphs, and popular media examples can overwhelm and distract from the explanation of even the most simple idea or concept. The 224 pages of text feature more than sixty figures and illustrations, which often interrupt the point they seek to illustrate. And the specific examples from South Africa's turbulent history, languages, and cultures are not always transferable. The text makes little effort to provide more globalized, transnational examples, so a reader could easily conclude that Janks's theories are not relevant outside South Africa. Perhaps a subsequent edition will include a wider variety of examples from other cultures and political contexts. Nonetheless, Literacy and power is a unique combination of critical literacy history, neo-Marxist theory, and classroom pedagogy.
