Constructing literacy: An examination of discourse in *policy through content analysis

This study is a close look at the definitions of literacy as manifested in the discursive practices used in U.S. government policy documents. Analysis of documents used content analysis to examine the existence, frequency and relationships among concepts related to literacy within and across a series of eight policy documents. The study was informed by poststructuralist social theory (Foucault and Derrida) the application of such theory to education (Freire) and to democracy (Dewey and Gutmann). It involved the application of analytical approaches to discourse derived from the work of J. P. Gee and J. Ifverson to examine discourse in literacy policy in the U.S., by focusing on language concerning and surrounding literacy using content analysis.