Harold Castaneda-Pena – författare

This collection explores the critical decolonial practices of applied linguistics researchers from Latin America and the Latin American diaspora, shedding light on the processes of epistemological decolonization and moving from a monolingual to a multilingual stance.

The volume brings together participants from an AILA 2021 symposium, in which researchers reflected on applied linguistics in Latin America, and on the ways in which it brought concerns around social justice, the legacy of coloniality, and the role of monolingual English in education to the fore. Each chapter is composed of four parts: an autobiographical section written both in Spanish or Portuguese and in English followed by a reflection on the epistemological differences between versions; a discussion in English of the research project; a critical reflection on the epistemic practices and critical pedagogies enacted in the project; and the author(s)’ understanding of the concept of decolonization and recommendations for further decolonizing the monolingual mindset of language teachers and learners. At once linguistic, epistemological, and political, the collection aims to diversify the concept of decoloniality itself and showcase other ways in which decolonial thought can be implemented in language education.

This book will be of interest to scholars in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language education.

This collection explores the critical decolonial practices of applied linguistics researchers from Latin America and the Latin American diaspora, shedding light on the processes of epistemological decolonization and moving from a monolingual to a multilingual stance.

The volume brings together participants from an AILA 2021 symposium, in which researchers reflected on applied linguistics in Latin America, and on the ways in which it brought concerns around social justice, the legacy of coloniality, and the role of monolingual English in education to the fore. Each chapter is composed of four parts: an autobiographical section written both in Spanish or Portuguese and in English followed by a reflection on the epistemological differences between versions; a discussion in English of the research project; a critical reflection on the epistemic practices and critical pedagogies enacted in the project; and the author(s)’ understanding of the concept of decolonization and recommendations for further decolonizing the monolingual mindset of language teachers and learners. At once linguistic, epistemological, and political, the collection aims to diversify the concept of decoloniality itself and showcase other ways in which decolonial thought can be implemented in language education.

This book will be of interest to scholars in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language education.

This book presents an innovative theoretical and methodological approach to study information literacy in higher education contexts. While mainstream studies tend to see information literacy as a technical and universal process, this book proposes a theoretical and methodological framework to study information literacy from a sociocultural perspective, highlighting the importance of the social and cultural contexts in which information literacy develops.

This situated approach demands that research data must be analysed in relation to the contexts in which they emerge, so the book proposes a research method based on the study of personal histories and stories, learning situations and intersubjective relationships to characterize the different information profiles of different information users. 

Adopting a multidisciplinary approach that combines contributions from educational research, psychology and information sciences, the authors first present a theoretical discussion to argue in favor of the sociocultural paradigm to study information literacy, then present their methodological proposal to observe informational competencies among higher education students, and finally present the results of an empirical study to identify different information literacy profiles among Latin American students and teachers.

Breaking with the hegemonic paradigm in the field, Information Literacy in Higher Education – A Sociocultural Perspective provides useful and innovative tools to researchers working in different areas of the social sciences, such as education, psychology, linguistics and information sciences.