Changing the literacy habitus of a Hong Kong secondary school

Firkin's and Forey draw upon Freebody's and Luke's Four Resources Model as well as Bourdieu's concept of habitus (the set of dispositions which generate particular practices and perceptions) to describe the processes of pedagogical change in a Hong Kong secondary school. In their analyses, redesigning pedagogy is about the need to "change the habitus" by changing the practices. They describe the work of teacher practitioners and researchers involved in the project to change, from an instrumental focus on literacy towards a critical literacy pedagogy. Bourdieu's model of habitus provides them with a language and tool by which to analyse the constraints and possibilities of redesigning pedagogies, at the teacher practioner level, at the level of the institution, and within the context of the national habitus.