Professional Documents
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Arti 7
Arti 7
2006/ED/EFA/MRT/PI/32
This paper was commissioned by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report as
background information to assist in drafting the 2006 report. It has not been edited by the
team. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and should not
be attributed to the EFA Global Monitoring Report or to UNESCO. The papers can be cited
with the following reference: “Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report
2006, Literacy for Life”. For further information, please contact efareport@unesco.org
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Introduction
This paper aims to provide a summary of the major understandings of literacy, as they
have evolved since the 1950s. In doing so, it seeks to unearth some of the implications
that these different understandings have for monitoring literacy. Drawing largely from
a background paper prepared for the GMR 2006 by Brian Street (2004) it charts four
key components of literacy which define the evolution of the dominant (and largely
Anglophone) discourse; literacy as a set of skills, literacy as applied and socially
situated, literacy as a learning process, and literacy as text. Finally, a tentative
framework which combines these dimensions as a heuristic device for understanding
literacy is proposed.
Since the mid-twentieth century considerable scholarly attention has been devoted to
unpacking the meaning of literacy and the implications that this has for approaches to
practice and policy. Different countries have entered the debates surrounding literacy
in significantly different ways, according to their various epistemological traditions
and their different political and socio-cultural experiences with literacy (see Box 1).
Of course, external influences – from international organisations or dominant
intellectual traditions – have partly shaped recent understandings of literacy (or at
least those reflected by policy rhetoric) so that many contemporary understandings
now echo the Anglophone tradition. The Francophone world is a case in point, with
the recent adoption of the term littératie deriving directly from the OECD’s emphasis
on information skills for the knowledge society.
Ferdandez 2005, in his background paper for the GMR 2006 charts the evolution for
the concept in French reflected by the utilization of different words for
‘literacy/illiteracy’. Thus, literacy as a concept has developed from alphabetisation
(literacy learning), analphabétisme (illiteracy identified initially in immigrants)
illetrisme (illiteracy identified in those with some schooling but lacking basic skills)
alphabétisme (literacy according to OECD notions of skills for the ‘knowledge
society’) littératie, littératies and littérisme (notions of functional literacy, literacies
and literacy learning largely consistent with the Anglophone tradition).
Sources: Fernandez, 2005; Haar, 2005 (last revised: 12-6-2005) available at:
http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/bth/literacy.htm
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Though the Anglophone literacy discourse is probably the most influential - both to
international and national understandings of literacy, it is by no means an exhaustive
theoretical tradition. Moreover, understandings of literacy in the Anglophone world
are structured around a complex set of inter-disciplinary debates. Academics from
disciplines as wide-ranging as psychology, economics, linguistics, sociology,
anthropology, philosophy and history have engaged in these debates, and as such it is
highly contested and ever-evolving.
In light of this theoretical diversity, there is some sense in charting out the major
traditions, approaches and critiques within a heuristic framework which encompasses
the different ways that literacy has been understood in the Anglophone tradition: as a
set of skills; as applied, practiced and situated; and as a process of learning1.
These broad areas of enquiry accommodate most theories of literacy, but not all. A
more recent development is the understanding of literacy as text whereby literacy is
seen as engagement with a particular form of symbolic ‘meaning-making’. Drawing
from this, more radical strands of this postmodernist understanding of literacy have
started to perceive literacy as an instrument of power and oppression, legitimating
dominant discourses and endangering languages, cultures and local knowledge. While
this perspective is not so conducive to monitoring literacy (particularly at the global
level) it nevertheless raises an important caution regarding the ultimate vision and
direction of the ‘literacy project’.
1
This conceptual distinction is adapted from that proposed by Brian Street (2004) in his background
paper for the GMR 2006.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Literacy as skills
To be effective, reading instruction needs to conform to the way the brain processes
reading patterns, and techniques such as phonological awareness training and
increasingly faster reading tasks for participants may be effective in improving skills.
However, few adult educators know the relevant issues and techniques.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
syllables bare some relation to the sound of the language. Though it is also true that
English utilises both sound and meaning through symbols such as numeric markers.
This is similarly the case for the Arabic alphabet.
As with the discourse surrounding learning to read, research into learning to write has
also become increasingly dictated by ‘scientific’ principles of phonetic instruction.
This has given rise to the establishment of literacy myths or ‘beliefs’ that writing is
the transcription of speech, and is, moreover, ‘superior’ to speech. A consequence of
this reasoning is the assumption that, given its proximity to phonetics over meaning,
the alphabetic writing system has technological superiority over other forms of scripts
(Olson, 1994 cited in Street, 2004). This in turn has some impact on the alleged
superiority of languages based on an alphabetic script over less phonetic scripts. With
the increasing emphasis on learning methods that are based on phonetics, there is a
tendency towards teaching literacy in languages that compatible with these methods.
As Street points out, many of these theories have rested on deeper assumptions about
the ‘cognitive consequences’ of learning to read and write. Anthropologists (e.g.
Goody 1977) and psychologists (e.g. Olson 1994) have linked the cognitive argument
to broader patterns of development, regarding the importance of the acquisition of
literacy for a society’s functioning and ‘progress’, and thus, implying a ‘technology’
of literacy (Ong, 1982). However, as recognised through the work of social
psychologists Sylvia Scribner and Micheal Cole in the 70s, many of the assumptions
about literacy in general are ‘tied up with school-based writing’ which leads to serious
limitations in the accounts of literacy: ‘The assumption that logicality is in the text
and the text is in school can lead to a serious underestimation of the cognitive skills
involved in non-school, non-essay writing’ (Scribner and Cole, 1978 cited in Street,
2004- see Box 6 on literacy practices). Olson similarly recognises that ‘The focus on
literacy skills seriously underestimates the significance of both the implicit
understandings that children bring to school and the importance of oral discourse in
bringing those understandings into consciousness in turning them into objects of
knowledge.’ (Olson, 1997 cited in Street 2004)
Oral skills
With increased dichotomous distinction between ‘oral’ and ‘literate’ cultures3 came a
gradual usurpation of oral modes of communication by the ‘technology’ of writing
(Ong, 1982: 24). This, according to Ong, transformed human consciousness. Not only
did it allow for the representation of words as signs, it gave a linear shape to
thought and provided a critical framework within which to think analytically. This is
exemplified by the beginnings of Greek philosophy which were bound to the
restructuring of thought brought about by writing. Plato's exclusion of poets from his
Republic displays a rejection of the old oral culture "in favour of keen analysis and
dissection of the world and of thought itself made possible by the interiorization of the
Greek alphabet." Plato's term "idea" (eidos, form or model) is, like writing, visually
3
See, for instance, Harvey Graff (1987) who refers to the 'tyranny of conceptual dichotomies'; binary
distinctions between literate and illiterate, written and oral, print and script. Many studies refer to
idealised types of society as if 'orality' and 'literacy' were polar opposites. Thus, cultures characterised
as representative of 'orality' are small-scale, rural, communal, non-individualistic, authoritarian and
conformist, whilst those characterized as exemplars of 'literacy' are large-scale, urban-industrial,
individualistic, heterogeneous and rationalistic (Chandler, 1994).
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
based and derives from the same root as the Latin "video," which means "to see" (bid.
80).
Whilst emphasizing the importance of carefully studying actual uses of orality and
literacy, Finnegan concludes that “looking for recurrent patterns and differences can
still be illuminating in the study of human societies even if one has to treat them with
caution, and (as I would urge) avoid the idea of universally applicable causal
mechanisms based on specific technologies” (Finnegan 1988, p. 168). Box 3 draws
out some of these patterns.
aural visual
impermanence permanence
fluid fixed
rhythmic ordered
subjective objective
inaccurate quantifying
resonant abstract
time space
present timeless
participatory detached
communal individual
Taking into account oral competencies as well as reading and writing skills has
important consequences for literacy outcomes. As noted by Robinson, empowerment
of women, for example, also involves development of oral expression and the
knowledge that women already have. ‘This needs to be an integral part of literacy
work with women – for women to have increased voice in family, community and
society at large, both oral and written expression will be required’ (Robinson, 2003).
In terms of numeracy, most adult learners already know oral counting and some
mathematical structures and have an art of mental arithmetic more or less adequate for
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
their daily life; in fact, many ‘illiterate’ adults (especially those involved in trade) are
better at mental arithmetic than are more ‘educated’ people (Archer and Cottingham,
1996). These skills should be taken into account and built upon.
Numeracy skills
Today, ‘numeracy’ (and the competencies it comprises) is often understood either as a
supplement to the set of skills encompassed by ‘literacy’ or as a component of
‘literacy’ itself. According to the Research Review by the UK’s National Research
and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy4, the term ‘numeracy’ was
coined in the Crowther Report (DES, 1959) as the "mirror image of literacy" to mean
a relatively sophisticated level of what might nowadays be called scientific literacy.
Twenty years later there were signs of a less utilitarian usage when, in an article
originally published in 1978, Girling argued that being numerate involved the sensible
use of a 4-function calculator (Girling, 1992).
Building on these critiques, Johnston and her colleagues distinguish between concepts
of numeracy with narrowly-defined goals or learning outcomes, such as have been
adopted by many national and international bodies, which they characterise as
approaching numeracy from a human resources or accountability perspective, and
approaches which would allow for the development of critical citizenship
(Johnston, FitzSimons, Maaß, & Yasukawa, 2002). This distinction (and the
dominance of the former, more cognitive approach) is elaborated by Gal (see Box 4)
4
This section draws on the extensive literature review conducted by the NRDC and presented in the
report: Coben et al, 2003. All of the references listed in this section are cited in this report, available at:
http://www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_2802.pdf
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Gal sees adult numeracy education as helping students "to manage effectively
multiple types of numeracy situations" (p24). He characterises numeracy as a semi-
autonomous area at the intersection between literacy and mathematics (p23) and
asserts that conceptions of numeracy should address not only purely cognitive issues,
but also students’ dispositions and cognitive styles (p21).
5
Other epistemologies of mathematics exist (such as constructivist, socio-cultural, feminist and
ethnomathematics schools of though) and will be discussed in the following sections.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
that enable access to knowledge and information (and sometimes promote active
engagement with meaning-making processes) (see Table 1).
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Today, the concepts of “information literacy,” “visual literacy,” and “media literacy”
are often used interchangeably. Their definitions tend to have diverse and shifting
meanings, and are often used very selectively. These range from the view of literacy
as neutral technical skills, which tends to predominate in the United States (Hull et al
2003) to the application of these skills in a critical way and for transformative
purposes. For example, in the case of ‘information’ literacy, the term in its broadest
sense refers to the ability to access and use a variety of information sources to solve
an information need. But, it can also defined as the development of a complex set of
skills that allow people to express, explore, question, communicate and
understand the flow of ideas among individuals and groups in a vastly changing
technological environment. Similarly, media literacy can refer to the knowledge and
utilisation of a variety of mediums. But it can also imply a critical understanding of
the more insidious subjectivism, biases and hidden objectives within these mediums.
Fundamental to these latter interpretations is an emphasis on skills of critical
enquiry.
However, the notion of multiple literacies is not without controversy. To some (e.g.
Jones 1997) literacy has become a debased term with its core reference to reading
obscured. Others question why we are using literacy as a metaphor for everything else
(Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola 1999). Those advocating a multimodality approach
would argue that while reading is still an essential part of literacy, it is not just reading
script, but also other symbols in different contexts for different purposes that
constitutes literacy.
• The ability to read, write and (to a lesser extent) calculate constitutes the
conventional understanding of literacy. Most alternative understandings also
recognise these outcomes as desirable and build on, rather than reject, this
understanding. Indeed, the motivation to learn and the central goal of literacy
programmes is usually to develop these skills. Other skill-sets such as visual
literacy, oral literacy and information literacy have been recognised more recently
but with less global consensus.
• This understanding tends to isolate literacy as a set of outcomes which can be
broken down into parts to teach and test. While outcomes may be linked to a set of
inputs, the processes of learning, broader uses of the skills and context dimensions
are often neglected. The skills are also often assumed in a dominant or official
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
However, as this section has shown this understanding is not without its limitations.
Barton, amongst others offers a hefty critique of the ‘skills approach’ to literacy
which derives from the discourse of psychology and implies an ‘autonomous’ view of
literacy, seeing reading (for example) as a set of skills which can be broken down into
parts and taught and tested. This assumes that there are clear and discrete stages in
learning, with the separate skills learned in a linear order. Underlying this, deep down,
is the organising idea of there being only one way of learning to read (David Barton
(1994) Literacy: An Introduction To The Ecology Of Written Language, Blackwell:
Oxford). Others, such as Street have argued that this model disguises the cultural and
ideological assumptions that underpin it, presenting them as though they are neutral
and universal. He claims that in practice, dominant approaches based on the
autonomous model are simply imposing western (or urban or male etc.) conceptions
of literacy on to other cultures (Street, 2001).
Nevertheless, the notion of skills may be useful when examining a specific situation
and is an important foundation for monitoring activities. In order to mitigate its
simplifications, one approach may be to see skills as situated within social ‘practices’
and to acknowledge that these same practices determine the skills. (Scribner and Cole,
cited in Barton, 1994)
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Functional literacy
Acknowledging the limitations of a skills-based approach to literacy, attempts were
made in the latter half of the twentieth century to focus more on the application of
these skills in ‘meaningful’ ways. One of the first coordinated efforts to do this came
in the form of ‘functional literacy’. This new understanding of literacy was first
defined at the World Congress of Ministers of Education on the Eradication of
Illiteracy, Tehran September 1965:
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s ‘functional literacy’ was preoccupied with linking
literacy to socio-economic development (a perspective put into practice through the
Experimental World Literacy Programme in conjunction with the UN’s first
Development Decade on Literacy6.)
In principle then, the notion of functional literacy takes our understanding of literacy
a step further by moving beyond a fixed set of skills. In practical terms, however, as
Barton and many others recognise, functional literacy has often meant teaching
literacy as a set of skills thought to be universal and applicable anywhere, with the
idea of there being one literacy which everyone should learn in the same way.
Moreover, there are several limitations in the functional approach to literacy. Firstly,
it is not obvious what the functions of literacy in a particular situation are. Whose
functions are being considered and in what particular context? Secondly, There is a
need to go beyond mere ‘functions’ in order to identify the possibilities which literacy
can offer (as illustrated previously in the previous section). Beginning with people’s
needs is important. But people’s perceived needs can only ever be a starting point –
what is critical, is beginning to encounter new uses and new possibilities for
individual and social transformation. Thirdly, In practice, the notion of functional
literacy in UNESCO campaigns has always been closely tied to employment and
related to economic development. Literacy has been treated as a variable, which is
measurable and the related to other variables of development, such as economic
development and modernity. The idea has been that resources are put into literacy and
this then aids development. In this sense, literacy is seen as an external factor which is
brought into a society. (Barton, 1994: 192-195)
6
The notion of functional literacy became a linchpin of UNESCO’s Experimental World Literacy
Programme (EWLP), initiated at the General Conference on Education in 1965, implemented in eleven
countries, and discontinued in 1973. The EWLP, funded by the United Nation’s Development
Programme (UNDP) and other agencies, aimed to provide literacy acquisition via experimentation and
work-oriented learning. Four projects were implemented in 1967 (in Algeria; Ecuador; Iran, Islamic
Republic of; and Mali), five in 1968 (Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, the United Republic of Tanzania
and Venezuela), and two in 1971 (India and the Syrian Arab Republic). The EWLP paid particular
attention to organization, methodology, financing, international cooperation and monitoring and
evaluation (Yousif, 2003). Overall, it was commonly regarded as a failure.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Contrary to the ‘autonomous’ skills approach to literacy, the NLS school is based on
an ‘ideological’ approach which recognises that literacy is a social practice, not
simply a technical and neutral skill; that it is always embedded in socially constructed
epistemological principles. The ways in which people address reading and writing are
themselves rooted in conceptions of knowledge, identity and being. The argument
about social literacies suggests that engaging with literacy is always a social act even
from the outset (ibid). Indeed, even so-called ‘objective’ skills associated with literacy,
such as numeracy skills can be situated socially (see Box 5)
The NLS approach has implications for both research and practice. ‘Researchers,
instead of privileging the particular literacy practices familiar in their own culture,
now suspend judgement as to what constitutes literacy among the people they are
working with until they are able to understand what it means to the people
themselves, and which social contexts reading and writing derive their meaning from.
Many people labelled ‘illiterate’ within the autonomous model of literacy may, from a
more culturally-sensitive viewpoint, be seen to make significant use of literacy
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
practices for specific purposes and in specific contexts’ (Doronilla, 1996 cited in
Street 2004).
Key concepts in the field of NLS include the notions of literacy events and of literacy
practices (see Box 6). Shirley Brice Heath characterised a ‘literacy event’ as ‘any
occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of the participants’
interactions and their interpretative processes’ (Heath, 1982, p. 50). Brian Street
employed the phrase ‘literacy practices’ (Street, 1984, p. 1) as a means of focussing upon
‘the social practices and conceptions of reading and writing’ though more recently,
‘literacy practices’ also incorporates ‘literacy events’ (Street, 1988).
Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole in (The Psychology of Literacy, 1981) worked
within traditions of cross-cultural psychology and carried out a study of the uses of
literacy among the Vai of north-west Liberia. Their detailed study covered the writing
systems, how people learned to read and write, and the uses of literacy. In their book
we can see how they shift their ideas from the notion of literacy as a set of skills with
identifiable consequences. They are edging towards their alternative notion of a
practice account of literacy, arguing that literacy can only be understood in the
context of the social practices in which it is acquired and used (Barton, 1994).
The NLS approach has, however, been criticized by some scholars, who claim it
overemphasizes local exigencies and insufficiently recognizes how external forces
(e.g. colonial administrations, missionaries, international communication, economic
globalization) have impinged upon the ‘local’ experiences of specific communities
(Brandt and Clinton, 2003; Collins and Blot, 2003). Maddox (2001) and Stromquist
(2004) question the reluctance of advocates of this approach to examine the potential
of literacy to help people move out of ‘local’ positions into fuller economic, social
and political participation.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
learning these skills in a second language (an example of developing oneself); or learning
numeracy skills for micro-credit schemes (an example of community development).
• The functional literacy approach has been criticised for being too focused on outcomes
and for its tendency to focus on economic rather than socio-cultural functions – though
this notion has been interpreted and used in many different ways.
While ‘functional literacy’ has been incorporated into national and international
monitoring efforts and has expanded some of the simplifications of the skills
approach, it is more difficult to monitor the socially situated understanding of literacy,
particularly at the international level.
Indeed within monitoring efforts, there has always been some tension between global
comparability and local validity (Wagner, 2006) and to date these two approaches to
monitoring have been more of less pigeon-holed: the former employing simplified
measures to monitor quantitatively at the macro level; and the latter using
ethnographic and other qualitative methodologies to investigate practice at local and
occasionally national levels.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
More recently, social psychologists and anthropologists have used notions like
‘collaborative learning’, ‘distributed learning’ and ‘communities of practice’ to shift
the focus away from the individual mind and towards more social practices (see
Rogoff, Lave and Wenger, Rogoff and Lave 1984, Lave 1988, Rogoff 2003 and Lave
and Wenger 1991 all cited in Street 2004). In discussions of informal learning Rogoff
and her colleagues, for example, distinguished between ‘the structure of intent
participation in shared endeavors’ and ‘assembly-line preparation based on
transmission of information from experts, outside the context of productive activity’
(Rogoff, 2003 discussed in Street 2004). Intent participation refers to a process
whereby facilitators often participate alongside learners as they define together the
learning experience. On the contrary, assembly-line preparation views teachers as
managers, who establish tasks and don’t participate themselves. As Street explains,
the two processes are differences in motivation and purposes, in sources of learning
(e.g., observant participation or lessons out of the context of productive, purposeful
participation), in forms of communication, and in forms of assessment (to aid or test
learning).
A similar distinction has been made by Rogers between ‘task-conscious’ learning and
‘learning-conscious learning’, each of which has its own methods of evaluation (task-
conscious by the task fulfilment, learning-conscious by measurements of learning).
Where these issues are not addressed (for example, in cognitive science research) the
more traditional literacy learning of children (including ‘assembly-line preparation’
and ‘task-conscious’ or ‘test learning’) tends to be used for adults, as evident in many
adult literacy programmes.
Perhaps the most famous adult literacy educator who has integrated both
constructivist and socio-cultural elements into his work, has been Paulo Freire (see
Box 7)
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
According to Paulo Freire, dialogue provides the link between oral and literate forms
of interpreting, understanding and transforming the world. It is not a matter of
speaking first, then developing reading skills, and then learning to write. Rather,
speaking, reading and writing are interconnected parts of an active learning process
and of social transformation. The words that people use in order to give meaning to
their lives are fashioned, created and conditioned by the world in which they inhabit.
In this approach, literacy acquisition encompasses critical exploration of the social
and political dimensions of learners’ experience. The objective here is
“conscientization” or becoming critically aware of social, political, economic, and
historical forces that shape oppression and, ultimately, social transformation. Quality
in this approach requires meeting four standards:
- First, learners must learn to code and decode print
- Second, the processes involved in learning must be collective and democratic.
- Third, the problems that serve as the basis for discussion and literacy learning
must come from the group which must “own” the process.
- Fourth, conscientization and social action must result from the learning
experience.
Freire’s emphasis on bringing the learner’s socio-cultural realities into the learning
process itself and then using the learning process to challenge these realities stresses
the potential of teaching and learning processes. Crucial to his pedagogy is the notion
of critical literacy, in part, though engaging with books and other written texts, but,
more profoundly, through reading (i.e. interpreting, reflecting on, interrogating,
theorizing, investigating, exploring, probing, questioning etc.) and writing (acting on
and dialogically transforming) the social world (Roberts, 2000).
This approach is not, however, without its critics. Opposition to Freirean pedagogies
has mainly come from the feminist lobby (who claim that the methodologies
themselves are somewhat gendered, though Freire started to address this in his later
work) and postmodern criticisms of universalistic thought (see, for example, Elizabeth
Ellsworth, K. Weiler, Bowers, Berger and Walker, all discussed in Roberts 2000).
Nevertheless, Freire’s approaches are currently practiced and in some cases even
institutionalised, most notably in ActionAid International’s Reflect projects7.
7
Reflect (Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques) is an approach
by which “the written word is increasingly placed alongside other forms of communication – the
spoken word, images and numbers. This does not involve a rejection of literacy but a repositioning of
it. Even if literacy is a central part of what you wish to (or have to) work on, it can be helpful to place
this in a wider context. Most people’s daily experience of disempowerment is probably not linked to
literacy – but rather to situations where the spoken word is the dominant medium – which reinforces
the need to address other media of communication”. (Archer in UNESCO 2003)
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
However, measure to monitor outcomes that are more bound up with learning as a
process (such as ‘empowerment’, confidence, critical thinking, changes in values,
attitudes and behaviour) have been developed (see Riddell, 2000).
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Literacy as text
This position has been built on by more radical critics who have focussed on stretches
of text referred to by socio linguists as ‘discourse’. Influenced by broader social
theory and by uses of the term Discourse by Foucault and others, they have developed
an approach to what Gee(1991) calls Discourse with a big D. This locates literacy
within wider communicative and socio-political practices. The work of Gee (1990)
and Fairclough (1991) represents a central plank of this approach (Street, 2004).
The broader policy question raised by all of this work is whether “the literacies being
taught in schools and in mainstream adult programmes are relevant to the lives that
learners are leading and will have to lead in the globalised world with its ‘new work
order’ demands of flexibility, multi modality and multi literacies” (Street 2004
referring to Gee et. al. 1996). Contemporary researchers have focused on workplaces
to discern the different literacy practices utilised. Many of these studies show that
there are often conflicts between such actual uses of literacy in the workplace and the
kinds of literacy skills prioritised in official strategies and campaigns (Street 2004).
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
this school takes a radically critical look at literacy and the potentially dangerous
implications of certain types of literacy discourse on so-called ‘illiterates’.
Positioning a large part of the literacy movement within the ‘culture of schooling’, the
Shikshantar institute argues that it:
• Labels, ranks and sorts humans creating a rigid social hierarchy consisting of a
very small elite class of ‘highly educated’ and a large lower class of ‘failures’
and ‘illiterates’ based on levels of school achievement
• Imposes uniformity and standardization
• Spreads fear, insecurity, violence and silence
• Forces human beings to violently compete against each other
• Confines the motivation for learning to examinations, certificates and jobs
• Commodifies all human beings, Nature, knowledge and social relationships
• Fragments and compartmentalises knowledge, human beings and the natural
world
• Artificially separates human rationality from human emotions and the human
spirit
• Privileges literacy over all other forms of human expression and creation
• Reduces the spaces and opportunities for ‘valid’ human learning by demanding
that they all be funnelled through a centrally controlled institution.
• Destroys the dignity of labour, devalues the learning that takes place through
manual work
• Breaks intergenerational bonds of family and community and increases people’s
dependency on the State/Government, on science and technology, and on the
global market for both their livelihoods and identities.
These arguments primarily fall into three categories: Firstly, neo-Marxist critiques of
the legitimating and reproduction of the capitalist economic order; Secondly,
postmodernist or relativist critiques of the social construction of text and its
implications for gender and other power relations, and the standardisation of human
‘rationality’, undermining emotions and creativity; And thirdly, anthropological or
ecological critiques against the negative impact of literacy movements on language
diversity and preservation.
• This is the most radical understanding of literacy. Literacy here is equated to the
textual processes at play as literacy is acquired and used. These processes conceal
intricate power relations and serve to reproduce pre-existing inequalities.
- During the learning process, this occurs through the ‘hidden curriculum’. For
example, textbooks which repeatedly use images of woman as mothers, legitimate
the idea that women’s functions are limited to this role.
- In broader society, this takes the form of ‘Discourse’. For example, the idea that
children should go to school is not universal, but rather originated from some
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Of all the understandings of literacy, the notion of literacy as text is the most difficult
to monitor, and particularly at the macro level. Indeed, the only dimension that
accommodates some standardisation of measurement is the emphasis on ‘subject
matter’, which should be recognised as an important consideration.
The notion of literacy as Discourse and the caution against literacy’s ‘dark side’ are
also helpful qualifiers of the power of literacy, however, they are simply not
compatible with global monitoring efforts.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
Towards a Framework
Are there commonalities within all these traditions which might allow for a common
definition of literacy to be arrived at? Is it even desirable to attempt this?
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
He then questions whether there is a need for a universal definition of Literacy and
reasons that in fact a “water-tight compartment universal definition of literacy is
neither possible nor desirable. What is desirable is a broad-based definition which can
be used to plan, implement and assess literacy programs.” To this end, he presents a
rough draft for a definition of literacy to be discussed in the meeting:
Is this definition sufficient for the monitoring purposes of this report? This final
section addresses this question and presents a framework for organising literacy
which will then be utilised in different ways for the dual objectives of monitoring and
framing policy strategy on literacy.
8
The exceptions being the notion of literacy as a Discourse and the postmodernist arguments against
the ‘dark side of literacy’. In addition, while Yusuf and UNESCO more generally acknowledge and
integrate some of Freire’s principles of ‘reading the world’ for transformative purposes into their
understandings and practice, this is not explicitly mentioned in their working definition.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
CONTEXT
Learning Literacy skills
Literacy uses
processes (in which language(s)?) - What
- Curriculum uses?
- Learning - Reading - For what
methods - Writing benefits?
- Language - Speaking - Defined
- Literate - Listening by whom?
environment - Viewing - To
Etc. Etc. transform
- Family/ household
- Community
- School/ workplace
- At individual, local, national or global level
Literacy skills
Central to this framework is the notion of literacy as a tangible set of measurable
skills. As a minimum, this would include the cognitive skills of reading, writing and
numeracy in a language (or languages) that is (or are) relevant to the learner.
However, where appropriate, literacy competencies can be extended to include skills
of oral communication (speaking and listening) and ‘newer’ forms of communication
such as the ability to understand and use ICTs (e.g. computers and mobile phones).
Skills of ‘visual literacy’ (decoding signs, symbols and images) can also be important
for certain purposes. It is crucial to remember that none of these skills is dichotomous,
but rather constitutes a continuum in terms of the extent to which they are mastered.
Consequently, it may not be correct to say that someone can read and write if they are
only able to identify a selection of words or letters and can only sign their name. As
such, there is considerable value in the UNESCO definition of literacy as the ability to
“with understanding, both read and write a short simple statement on his or her
everyday life.”
Given the diversity of skills which can contribute to ‘literacy’, the broad continuum
within each, and the subjective assumptions regarding what constitutes being able to
read or write or calculate, there are many ways in which literacy skills can be
measured and monitored and many associated challenges. However, isolating the
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
skills dimension of literacy remains the most pragmatic and commonly used
methodology for monitoring purposes.
Literacy uses
The need to acquire and develop functional literacy is especially salient under
conditions of globalisation and regionalisation, since young people and adults must
perform capably in multi-lingual environments, whether socially, emotionally or
psychologically, in business, trade, cultural and religious practice and exchange,
politics, practices of citizenship, in other learning environments or developmental
activities. Consequently, literacy skills must be directly linked to enabling access to
and participation in these different spheres, events and practices. The type of skills
required and the way in which these skills are learnt and taught depends largely on the
envisaged uses and objectives of the learner.
Efforts have been made to incorporate the functional dimension into international
monitoring activities. The most renowned of these has been the IALS initiative which
measures literacy according to the knowledge and skills needed to understand and use
information from texts and information contained in various functional formats as
well as that required to apply arithmetic operations to numbers embedded in printed
materials. However, this approach to monitoring fails to take into account the more
questioning, critical and transformative uses of literacy for political purposes. While
the previous section on the benefits of literacy illustrates that there have been both
qualitative and quantitative evaluations of these political functions, the studies are
primarily focused at the local and national level. Due to the considerable contextual
variation in the uses of literacy, it is much more difficult to monitor this dimension
comparatively than the relatively objective skills dimension.
Context
Literacy can be acquired, used and sustained in different spheres and at different
levels to different degrees and depending on the various literate environments,
language mediums, and type of literacies at play in each. While literacy is most
commonly identified at the individual level, notions such as family literacy,
community literacy, and even global literacy are gaining prominence. Similarly, the
different ways that literacy can be acquired in the community, work place or in
educational settings, the different skills that are needed, and the different ways in
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
which they are used all combine to comprise a type of ‘literacy’ that is very much
dictated by context. As the NLS have shown, literacy is socially constructed and at the
same time has an impact on society. However, accepting such local diversity poses
serious challenges for global comparability.
Monitoring efforts must therefore as far as possible acknowledge context and the
caveats that this imposes on analysis, while at the same time attempting to bridge the
quantitative-qualitative divide by employing more ethnographic studies as
complementary analyses to assessments at the macro level.
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Understanding literacy: A concept paper Jude Fransman
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