This paper reports on ongoing research investigating the role of literacy in the secondary schools of England. A National Literacy Strategy was introduced in England in 1997, its principal initial focus being primary schools. It was always clear, however, that the strategy would influence secondary schools and later it became apparent that the strategy itself would be "continued" into the secondary phase. This research has continuously investigated the way secondary schools focus on the issue of literacy and in the future will examine their full implementation of the national strategy. The paper reports on recent work developed from principally survey-based research, undertaken two years ago, and reported in 1998 and 1999. Many changes have occurred in the education scene in that brief period, and the paper comments on those where relevant. Concerns are with the emergent definitions of literacy in operation and with the relationships between policy and practice. One significant factor in the investigation is the subject of English and its teachers, and although it is not the prime focus here, it inevitably features at certain points. In 1999 another national strategy, designed to upgrade the computer literacy of all teachers, was introduced, and its impact on the research could not be ignored. The other key factor was the increasing evidence that for students their lived experience of literacy was increasingly influenced by computer technologies. A methodological decision was to approach everything (surveys, interviews, and observations) from the perspective of"traditional" literacy but to "probe" whether computer technologies were impacting any of the foci, principally practice and the practitioners sense of agency. Includes 11 notes. (Contains 26 references and a literacy questionnaire.) (NKA)