LITERACY

LITERACY The ability to read and write in at least one language. This ability developed in West Asia in the third millennium BC, when the Sumerians developed a system of symbols to record spoken language. They were followed by the Syro-Palestinians who, between 2000 and 1000 BC, introduced a consonantal script using a small number of signs, the precursor of the alphabet. During the same period, increasingly complex commercial, administrative, and religious structures and growing urbanization led to the invention of WRITING systems in such other regions as Egypt, India, and China. In ancient cultures, literacy was rare and specialized, and therefore a token of considerable learning. In more recent centuries, however, the term has often been interpreted minimally: as at least the READING and writing of one's name, anyone unable to do so being classed as illiterate. In the 20c, however, the ability to read and write has been delimited in many ways and literacy is often used interchangeably with FUNCTIONAL LITERACY: the production and understanding of simple oral or written statements reflecting the social, economic, and educational conditions of a particular region. Yet the threshold of literacy is indeterminate, making exact measurements difficult or culturally variable. In 1965, at a world congress of ministers of EDUCATION. UNESCO adopted the view that ‘rather than an end in itself, literacy should be regarded as a way of preparing man for a social, civic and economic role that goes far beyond the limits of rudimentary literacy training consisting merely in the teaching of reading and writing’ (‘Literacy, Gateway to Fulfillment’, special issue of UNESCO Courier, June 1980).

Literacy in English

The earliest written English was the concern of a small minority of men, first in the runic alphabet, whose letters were carved on objects for both practical and ornamental purposes, then in the Roman alphabet introduced in Britain by Christian missionaries at the end of the 6c. Education remained for many centuries a province largely of the Roman Catholic Church and the need for reading and writing was not greatly extended until the introduction of movable type and inexpensive paper in the late 15c. This helped standardize written versions of English, expand the uses of literacy, and give reading and writing greater circulation among the populace. Determining who is literate and for what purposes has always been difficult. The collection of statistics tends to be confounded by the under-representation of people marginalized from the economic and political centres of a culture: for example, in censuses, by incomplete records, and by variable standards of what should be measured. Data such as signatures or court and ecclesiastical testimony have been used to estimate the degree of literacy in particular locales at particular times, but tend to depend on self-reports and minimal evidence; they give no account of such skills as comprehension of printed matter. Moreover, reading and writing have had different constituencies and uses during different periods. Thus, in the 17c Protestant communities of early New England, where male literacy was well above 60% by 1700, it was considered important to help women acquire reading skills for religious purposes but not writing because its ‘commercial uses lay beyond women's traditional sphere of activity’ ( Geraldine J. Clifford, ‘Buch und Lesen: Historical Perspectives on Literacy and Schooling’, Review of Educational Research 54, 1984).

Ideology and literacy

Deliberately taught rather than acquired like speech, literacy has traditionally been seen as a commodity delivered through political, educational, and religious bureaucracies. Reading, writing, and counting at sophisticated levels continued to be reserved first for the clergy and then for the sons of the aristocracy and of wealthy merchants; the term literacy in its 15–18c usages was regularly associated with a classical education and with priestly or civic élites. The literacy needs of most people, however, have tended to be functional: the production of reports, accounts, journals, and letters, and in recent times the completion of forms. Institutional arrangements for instruction in literacy according to the British and American models have, until the 20c, generally been aimed at achieving low to moderate levels of literacy for large numbers of people and higher levels for smaller privileged groups. Educational developments in 18c Scotland, linked with Presbyterianism, were typical: while the literacy rate for adult males jumped from 33% in 1675 to 90% in 1800, the increase was due to emphasis on reading, memorization, and recall of familiar material; neither writing nor the application of knowledge was demanded.

Literacy, knowledge, and problem-solving

The association of literacy with the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and the development of problem-solving abilities was by and large a product of the Industrial Revolution and, prior to the 20c, was generally confined to centres of education in cities. Country schools, whose pupils were needed to work the land and whose instructors were not always professionally certified, generally offered training in basic skills rather than fluency in written language. Both in town and country, however, children were drilled first on letter names and sounds, then on syllables and words. During the 19c, many reform-minded educators stressed the need for comprehension of reading materials, asserting that encountering words in context would lead students to a more rapid acquisition of meaning and a more appropriate use of emphasis and inflection. However, since lack of high-level literacy was regarded as neither degrading nor detrimental to economic or social advancement, 19c levels of literacy remained low while numbers of people described as literate grew.

During the 20c, attitudes to literacy have changed. School-based definitions of literacy and standards relating to year groups have been adopted in most English-speaking countries, as competency testing has replaced functional determinants. Paradoxically, because of heightened expectations and increased technological demands, many people who have exceeded traditional literacy criteria are now considered semiliterate or functionally illiterate. In addition, legislators, educators, and public activists throughout the English-speaking world have sought to broaden the social and personal dimensions of literacy through mandatory training in such things as historical literacy (awareness of the main outlines of history, especially as regards one's own country), cultural literacy (a knowledge of classical texts and great writers of one's own culture), mathematical literacy (also called numeracy), symbolic literacy (an appreciation of the value and use of symbols of various kinds), media literacy (familiarity with and a capacity to understand and to some extent evaluate the different media and what they provide), and computer literacy (familiarity with and ability to use a computer, without necessarily being able to write programs).

Conclusion

Literacy requirements, which often relate to and depend on such highly specific contexts as occupational need, continue to vary among social and economic groups, with low levels concentrated among the poor, the undereducated, and members of minority populations. Given the lack of contemporary agreement concerning its definitions and uses, literacy is best conceived as a continuum whose dissemination involves various kinds of behaviour at higher and lower levels, including reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking, counting, coping with the demands of the state, of employment, and of social life. See ILLITERACY, SPELLING.