Aging Literacies:
Training and Development Challenges for Faculty
Angela Crow
Conclusion
Concluding her book in Chapter 8, Crow revisits the theme of a collaborative approach to technology-driven faculty training and development, one where the usual distinction is blurred between rhetor and audience. Resisting an “imposition of values” in the realm of new literacies, Crow militates against powerful/powerless and knowledgeable/ignorant dichotomies, stating by contrast that “[a]ccumulating literacies is always a dialogic act” (p. 120). Along with her strong convictions, though, Crow is alert to the very real risk of difficulty in this paradigm of cooperation, four sources for which she locates: “existing power structures may resist this image”; “our own relations to/histories with education may disrupt learning”; theories of adult literacy may compete with her construct; “our attitudes toward aging (and our other accompanying identity categories) may shape assumptions” (p. 121). Crow conveniently offers a set of key questions from each of the preceding chapters before making her final statement: “Our field needs to consider aging issues with the same sophistication with which we address gender, race, class, region, body ability, orientation, and religious affiliations” (p. 137).