Reading the Word and the World: Opportunities for Articulating Popular Culture Through Classical Literature in Brazil Roseli Mello Adriana Marigo Raquel Moreira Rosimara Correia Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar - Brazil) Funded by: FAPESP - CNPq Brazil still has quite important rates of inequality regarding education. In PISA 2013, the country was ranked on 58th place among the 65 participating countries. Poor proficiency in reading is one of the worrisome elements of the Brazilian educational system. Aiming to contribute to reverse such situation and promote quality education and social justice for vulnerable groups, some Brazilian schools have started to implement Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLG) as a successful action in reading and literacy development. The DLG is a dialogic reading practice of classical universal literature created by Flecha (Giner, 2011) and widespread in different countries. Guided by the dialogical learning, DLG promotes what Freire and Macedo (1987) indicated as the effective link between reading the world and reading the word; it also stimulates dialogicity (Bakhtin, 1981) while supporting literacy learning (Soler, 2004). This paper is dedicated to demonstrate how DLG promotes reading learning towards emancipation of readers, through egalitarion dialogue with classical universal literature. It articulates research data held in Brazil in DLG in four different groups: one with children of early childhood education (3 and 4 years old); one with children of elementary school (girls and 8 boys and 9 years old); one with adults and young people with little schooling and another with elderly people with little schooling. 1. Objectives This paper addresses the following research questions: How does participants' reading of the world combines with the reading of the word in reading and discussing pieces of classical literature, articulating popular culture and erudite culture in the learning process? How does such articulation promote transformation on the understanding of the world and of academic learning of the participants and their teachers?