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Adopting a 'social practice' approach to literacy research based on ethnographic methods, this book provides a strong critique of dominant understandings of the role of literacy in the lives of adults in Australia. It explores how groups of working-class adults can manage the literacy practices of their everyday lives by drawing on social networks of support. It is based on research conducted by the author over a forty-year career in adult literacy education, featuring the voices of varied adult groups, including: prisoners, the long-term unemployed, local council workers, manufacturing workers, adult literacy students, marginalised young people, vocational students, and patients living with a chronic illness (type 2 diabetes).

Each chapter explains how dominant society views these adult groups in relation to literacy, and provides a qualitative examination at the local level of how members of these groups manage the literacy practices of their everyday lives.