Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:42:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ArquivoTotal.pdf: 6392306 bytes, checksum: 2e66dcfe403d83769ef19e2de4979b55 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-03 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This study is situated in the field of Applied Linguistics, and it is characterized as qualitative action research. Our goal is to examine the literacy practices of a tutor in a community computing center, located in Barra de Mamanguape - a small fishing village in the north of the state of Paraíba, Brazil. The data was collected before and after the opening of the computing center in the village. The idea was to investigate how the literacy practices of the participant, especially the digital ones, would change in the course of the academic project named Pescadores Online, which was responsible for building the computing center, for providing broad band connection in Barra de Mamanguape, as well as for training the present tutors. In addition to investigating the participant's literacy practices, I decided to investigate his evaluation/interpretation regarding the academic project and related aspects. The research is based on the theories of the new literacy studies (STREET, 1984; BARTON et.al, 2000; KLEIMAN, 1995, 2005, 2007; OLIVEIRA & KLEIMAN, 2008), and on the theory of the Socio-discursive Interactionism (BRONCKART, 1999, 2006, 2008), with especial attention to the enunciative mechanisms, such as modalization. Our corpus consists of 2 questionnaires regarding the participant's literacy practices, a reading record, and 5 reflective reports. The procedures of collection and construction of our corpus occurred in two different phases: the first phase refers to the period before the computing center (during the time the tutors were being trainned), and the second one refers to the period after the opening of the computing center in Barra de Mamanguape (the action period itself). The results of this investigation show that the literacy practices of the participant increased in a significant way in the second phase, as compared to the first phase. The evaluations of the participant on the academic project show that, in the beginning, he was curious and suspicious, for he had never thought of having broad band connection in his village. As time went by, though, and when the actions started effectively in the community computing center, his evaluation and comments became more confident, and we could see a proud tutor who worked hard to get his community into the digital era. Thus, I came to the conclusion that this research not only helped us to understand the literacy practices and the cultural context of our participant, but it also played an important role in providing new guidelines for our practices as digital literacy agents. / Este estudo enquadra-se no escopo da Linguística Aplicada e caracteriza-se como pesquisa-ação de cunho qualitativo-interpretativista. Foi realizado em uma vila de pescadores, localizada no litoral norte da Paraíba, no âmbito do projeto de extensão intitulado Pescadores Online: uma proposta de inclusão e letramento digital na comunidade de Barra de Mamanguape, desenvolvido pela Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB). O objetivo geral da presente pesquisa foi contrastar as práticas de letramento, especialmente digital, de um dos integrantes da equipe de monitores do Telecentro Comunitário Rural Pescadores Online, antes e depois da chegada da internet e da implantação do telecentro na comunidade, em 2011. Diante disso, buscamos investigar o impacto das novas Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação nas práticas de leitura e de escrita do participante. Além disso, buscamos investigar seu olhar avaliativo acerca do projeto de extensão e dos elementos a ele relacionados, através das modalizações inscritas em seus relatos reflexivos. A fim de empreendermos esta investigação, nos apoiamos nas correntes teóricas sobre os novos estudos de letramento (STREET, 1984; BARTON et.al, 2000; KLEIMAN, 1995, 2005, 2007; OLIVEIRA E KLEIMAN, 2008), sobretudo no que se refere aos letramentos locais e ao letramento digital, e nos postulados do Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (BRONCKART, 1999, 2006, 2008), principalmente no que diz respeito aos mecanismos enunciativos, mais precisamente às modalizações. Nosso corpus é composto por dois questionários sobre as práticas de letramento e acervos de leitura do participante e cinco relatos reflexivos. O procedimento de coleta dos dados se deu em duas etapas, a saber: na fase de formação dos monitores, que corresponde ao período anterior à chegada da internet na comunidade, e na fase de ação dos monitores - período posterior à implantação do telecentro na vila. A análise das práticas de letramento nos possibilitou afirmar que, no caso avaliado, ocorre uma superposição do letramento local em detrimento dos letramentos dominantes, em função do acesso limitado às práticas de leitura e de escrita na vila, principalmente antes da chegada do telecentro comunitário. Com relação às práticas de letramento digital, podemos afirmar que houve uma ampliação significativa dessas práticas ao longo do período avaliado. Quanto às modalizações, identificadas em 28 fragmentos, pudemos constatar o predomínio de marcas apreciativas, pragmáticas e lógicas nos textos, revelando opiniões, avaliações e julgamentos procedentes dos mundos objetivos e subjetivos do enunciador. De modo geral, podemos afirmar que, através da análise do agir linguageiro do participante, percebemos que o projeto Pescadores Online provocou uma transformação não apenas no mundo físico/objetivo, mas principalmente em seu mundo sóciosubjetivo. Por fim, acreditamos que os resultados obtidos neste estudo serviram para (re) orientar nossa prática enquanto agentes de letramento digital e estamos certos de que ele poderá servir de exemplo para outros projetos e pesquisas em comunidades rurais e periféricas

This research has examined how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can promote healthy eating habits amongst African Americans in low-income neighborhoods, a population that faces disproportionately high rates of diet-related health problems. In this dissertation, I describe the formative research I conducted to obtain system design guidelines and how I used those guidelines to develop two applications: EatWell and Community Mosaic. I also describe the results of the in-depth field studies I conducted to evaluate each application. Both EatWell and Community Mosaic incorporate the cultural construct of collectivism, a social orientation in which interdependence and communal responsibility are valued over individual goals and independence. As researchers have generally characterized the African American culture as collectivistic and argued for the value of designing collectivistic health interventions for this population, I examined the implications of taking such an approach to designing health promotion technologies. EatWell and Community Mosaic are collectivistic because they empower users to care for the health of their local community by helping others learn practical, locally-relevant healthy eating strategies. I discuss the results of my formative fieldwork and system evaluations, which characterize the value, challenge and nuances of developing community-based health information sharing systems for specific cultural contexts. By focusing on health disparities issues and the community social unit, I extend previous health technology research within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). In particular, my results describe 1) a set of characteristics that help make shared material useful and engaging, 2) how accessing this information affects how people view the feasibility of eating well in their local context, 3) the way in which sharing information actually benefits the contributor by catalyzing personal behavior reflection, analysis and modification and 4) how sharing information and seeing that information's impact on others can help to build individuals' capacity to be a community health advocate. In addition, my work shows how examining cultural generalizations such as collectivism is not a straightforward process but one that requires careful investigation and appreciation for the way in which such generalizations are (or are not) manifested in the lives of individual people. I further contribute to HCI by presenting a set of important considerations that researchers should make when designing and evaluating community-based health systems. I conclude this dissertation by outlining directions for future HCI research that incorporates an understanding of the relationship between culture and health and that attempts to address health disparities in the developed world.