Abstract of

ISO 9002 as Literacy Practice: Coping With Quality-Control Documents in a High-Tech Company

Jo Anne Kleifgen, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA

This study describes the process by which a circuit board manufacturing company became certified in an international quality control program known as ISO 9002. Particular attention is paid to how quality documents were made and used in actual practice and to the relationship between these standardized procedures (official literacies) and management and employees' localized literacy practices. Work on the manufacturing floor was videotaped and employees were interviewed. ISO-related documentation, along with lists and codes devised by employees, was collected. Analysis shows the complexities of the certification and implementation process as well as the extent to which participants conform to the system. It also reveals the use of endogenous literacy practices in which various participants creatively reshape and sometimes circumvent the ISO system—the official set of literacies related to quality control. Within this system, imposed by globalizing pressures and designed to enforce uniformity and consistency, employees position themselves across shifting fields of conformity and innovation.

Abstract from Kleifgen, J. (2005, October/November/December). ISO 9002 as Literacy Practice: Coping With Quality-Control Documents in a High-Tech Company. Reading Research Quarterly, 40(4), 450–468. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.40.4.4