What is literacy? by Jean Searle return

Literacy is a socially contested term. We can choose to use this word in any of several different ways. Each such choice incorporates a tacit or overt ideological theory about the distribution of social goods and has important social and moral consequences.

(Gee, 1990: 27)

The subject of literacy has social, political and educational implications. In fact there is 'virtually no area of contemporary life in which literacy is not involved in some way, and it is imperative that all people understand the many kinds of literacy which collectively have such an impact on their lives' (Christie, 1990:2). But, as Hillerich (1976: 50) states 'the term literate has no universally accepted definition... if literacy is associated with proficiency in communication/thinking skills, acceptance of its desirability varies in terms of political/philosophical positions'.

Given the difficulty in defining literacy, many writers and commentators have resorted to the use of metaphor, the particular form and usage being dependent on the ideological position of the user. In discussing how metaphors have been used in the social construction of literacy, Barton (1994: 13) has drawn on the work of Levine (1986) to chart the different ways of talking about literacy (Table 1). This table provides, in a highly condensed form, varying representations of literacy, in particular how a lack of adequate literacy has been constructed over time.

Table 1: Some ways of talking about literacy

	Condition	Response	Means	Goal	Application
1	Sick	Treatment	Clinical intervention	Remittance
2	Handicapped	Rehabilitation	Compensatory aids	Alleviation	Dyslexia
3	Ignorant	Training	Instruction	Mastery	Orthodox literacy tuition
4	Incapacitated	Therapy	Counselling	Adjustment Assimilation Autonomy
5	Oppressed	Empowerment	Political organization/ Legislation	Rights	Conscientization
6	Deprived	Welfare	Reallocation of material resources	Benefit	Positive discrimination
7	Deviant	Control	Isolation Containment Physical coercion	Correction Conformity	Negative discrimination

Barton (1994) argues that the above metaphors of literacy are limiting, as they represent narrow conceptions of what is encompassed by the term. In contrast, the term 'literacy' is used in a much broader sense when applied, for example, to 'computer literacy' or 'political literacy'.

However, there is no reason why 'literacy' should not be used (as it often is) in a similar way–as an overarching metaphor or model for some of the activities and discourses associated with Adult Literacy–and this is the perspective taken in this article. These discourses are products of history and relate to different ideologies yet each will, in all likelihood, have been drawn upon by adult literacy practitioners to a greater or lesser extent, depending on background and interests, quite probably in the absence of any systematic analysis of adult literacy theory or ideology.

Literacy as control

The history of literacy in western societies is one of power and control, whether by the church, the state or certain groups with vested interests. The ancient Greeks for example, perfected the use of rhetoric as a means of persuasion or social control. Writing was denounced as encouraging mental laziness (Ong, 1982) and because it could be interpreted by the reader in many ways other than those intended by the author. This argument was subsequently presented as a rationale for restricting access to literacy. As a result, literacy was gendered and elitist, that is restricted to two classes of men, the upper classes of society (priests, rulers, scholars and the military) and the middle-class (traders). Such users of literacy reflected the various power relations, civic, religious and military within society. However, alongside the use of literacy for commercial purposes was the need for written records for administrative and bureaucratic purposes, for taxation, surveillance and record keeping, traditions which continue today.

More recently, with the industrialisation of Western Europe came mass education. Where previously, an elite form of education based on a classical tradition had been available to the upper classes, now, compulsory schooling, the purpose of which was to produce docile, compliant workers, was available to all.

Since the end of World War II the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has been at pains to quantify, explain and remedy the problem of 'illiteracy'. The focus for UNESCO has been on gathering statistics in 'developed', 'developing' and 'underdeveloped' countries regarding access to education as a measure of 'illiteracy' in the adult population. It could be argued that these campaigns represent another aspect of social control. Initially seen as 'developmental', the early UNESCO literacy campaigns and the World Bank literacy programs were based on the premise that a literate population would somehow increase productivity and hence the economic development of the country.

Mass literacy campaigns, particularly in the developing Third World, focused on 'inoculating' individuals with literacy in order to achieve cognitive enhancement, social and economic development. They also had a political agenda, being 'something of a crusade–the moral equivalent of war' (Bhola, 1982 cited in Arnove & Graff, 1987: 3). However, in 1993, the director of UNESCO's literacy section stated, 'When learners in these programs discovered that the only 'functionality' involved was to make them better workers, the majority of the experiments failed' (Limage, 1993: 23).

Questions need to asked about who has access to literacy (in relation to gender and class) and whose literacy is privileged?

Literacy as 'a crisis'

Literacy rates are seen as indicators of the health of the society and as a barometer of the social climate. As a result, illiteracy takes on a symbolic significance, reflecting any disappointment, not only with the workings of the education system, but with society as a whole (Cook-Gumperz, 1987: 1)

Somehow, society and schooling in particular, has failed, although, as Graff (1986: 62) stated, this is because 'literacy is profoundly misunderstood'. The assumption that literacy is linked to economic development, growth and progress 'is unduly limiting and distorting' Graff (1986: 72). But such 'literacy myths' were perpetuated by social commentators such as Marshall McLuhan who used a range of definitions and statistics to highlight a 'literacy crisis'. This is one example of how literacy 'crises' are manufactured, that is, using an 'invention hypothesis' (Welch & Freebody, 1993: 14). These authors also suggest a number of other hypotheses–'demands', 'credentials' and 'slide'–in relation to so called 'crises'.

Literacy levels, for example, are often determined by achievements on standardised tests, particularly in the US. Falling scores on such tests then support the 'slide hypothesis' (Welch & Freebody, 1993: 9). This then justifies a behaviourist 'back-to-basics' approach to literacy education. Hodgens (1994) however, argues that these sudden 'crises' actually reflect a fundamental shift in the social order, following the instability and permissiveness which marked society in the 1970s. 'Illiteracy, as reported, is an indicator of a deeper institutional malaise. The moral order of society itself is seen to be at stake' (Hodgens, 1994: 17) as reflected in the media's use of emotive images such as affliction, disease, shame and so on.

Literacy as autonomy: basic skills

The 'autonomous' model of literacy, as defined by Street (1984) is based on a narrow, culture specific literacy practice – the 'essay-text' form of literacy – which assumes unidimensional progress towards 'civilisation' or economic 'take-off', a movement from non-literate to literate (Goody, 1986, 1977). In America this discourse was aligned with Protestant missionary groups such as Laubach and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (Barton, 1994:190). Associated 'conservative' discourses include notions of deficit and remediation and medical metaphors such as 'illiteracy' represent it as a disease which must be 'detected', 'treated early' and 'prevented'. This view of literacy presumes that the skills of reading, writing and enumerating are context free, are universal in time and space, and generate consequences for cognition, social progress and individual achievement, in other words, that they are generic skills.

The adoption of skills-based approaches to instruction and structured curricula reflects literacy education as being the acquisition of sets of decontextualised rules and patterns, for example: phonics checklists, spelling rules and traditional grammar. This has important implications for pedagogical theory and practice. Not only is this a reductionist view of education, it has been drawn on to inform public debate about falling 'literacy levels or standards', 'back to basics' campaigns, and has been used inappropriately by employers and others in the form of initial assessment 'tests' or literacy screens.

Literacy as a right: social justice

This philosophy characterised many of the early adult literacy programs. It stems from an historic declaration on literacy proclaimed at a UNESCO sponsored International Symposium for Literacy held at Persepolis, Iran in 1975, which stated that literacy is 'not just the process of learning skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, but a contribution to the liberation of man [sic] and his full development. Literacy is a fundamental human right'.

This view is based on an ideology which is 'humanistic in quality not because it is about human products as in the past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and human sympathy' (Dewey, 1916: 230). As a result, 'progressive' educational practices include: focusing on the learner's needs and interests; the educator as a facilitator and supporter of learning; and the belief in 'literacy as a fundamental human right'. In keeping with this philosophy is the notion of volunteerism in which members of the community who wished to 'empower' others or 'share their love of reading' completed a short training course then worked individually with an adult literacy student. Humanist discourses use the metaphor of 'growth' with a focus on personal integration and wholeness, which was reflected in 'whole language' praxis. The surge of interest in 'process writing' was a reaction or alternative to the autonomous model of skills-based pedagogies. These oppositional approaches formed the background to a number of debates beginning with the dichotomy between 'process' and 'product'–whole language versus genre.

Literacy for social action - transformation

Another more radical ideology, which was to have a major impact on adult literacy in Australia, was conceptualised in the emancipatory discourses of Paulo Freire. To Freire, education was the means to bring about radical social and political change. Freire gave recognition to techniques related to empowerment through dialogue and through problematising, for which he used the term 'conscientization'. Education then becomes the way of freedom, and literacy becomes a highly political act as 'the oppressed' struggle against the hegemony of the ruling elites - the oppressors. For Freire, literacy learning was an integral part of acquiring values, of 'forming mentalities' (Street, 1984:186) and of social action.

Freire challenged the top-down 'banking' approach to education in favour of grass-roots literacy programs which enabled the learners to transform their social situations. This view of literacy therefore is essentially ideological and concerned with power relations. Many adult educators in Australia would agree with Jarvis (1988: 171) that 'Freire's unique synthesis of Christianity, Marxism and existentialism has produced a theoretical approach to teaching that is both inspiring and challenging'. Early leaders in the adult literacy field in Australia responded to Freire's approach, particularly after his visit to Melbourne in 1972, by adopting many of his principles not only to encourage adult learners to engage in social action within their communities, but on the wider scale to become politically active in working for government acknowledgement of 'the oppressed' literacy students.

Literacy as technology

Writing in response to the UNESCO campaigns, Oxenham (1980) sought to move away from the ideologies governing the campaigns by suggesting that state and commercial interests lay in the use of 'literacy as a technology', which, by its use, could transform the user. 'Literacy, in short, is a technology, a technical method of achieving a practical purpose'(Oxenham, 1980: 41). However, it has already been demonstrated that throughout history, literacy as technology has been used successfully to control access to certain forms of knowledge, i.e., who is permitted to construct and interpret information.

In recent years however, a new 'form' of 'literacy as technology' has become part of the human capital discourse (Lankshear, 1993). A lack of, or inadequate literacy, today, means to be 'dispossessed', that is, locked out of possession of new forms of knowledge, information and new modes of thinking and ideas, not only in relation to jobs but also as an 'essential for living healthy and independent lives–particularly in times of decreasing social and welfare provision by the state for poorly defended groups' (Lankshear, 1993).

In a recasting of the 'literacy as autonomy' model, literacy is again being seen as a tool which is essential to gain access to this new knowledge. At the same time, literacy in the 'new work order' (Gee & Lankshear, 1997) is constructed as a 'technical method of achieving a practical purpose' to be used to determine who needs what literacy, and how literacy skills or competencies should be measured. Millar (1991) argues however that this technological discourse, constructs education as an assembly line producing human skills and capacities. As a result, educational outcomes can be stated and individual performance can be assessed in relation to the objectives. Hence governments, as well as commercial, military and business interests, see this discourse as particularly powerful.

This managerialist discourse, based around the management of large systems or concepts, has been adopted by recent governments to manage the Australian economy and skills development. It is argued that this has marked a return to the autonomous model of learning, which reappeared in the form of competency based training. These initiatives were to have a major impact on the adult literacy field, transforming traditional understandings of 'literacy' and literacy practice.

Literacy as social practice

In contrast to the earlier representations of literacy, which Street would argue are all (including Freire's model) variations on the 'autonomous' model, Street (1984) proposed an 'ideological' model. This view of literacy takes as its central premise that 'the social and political significance of literacy derives largely from its role in creating and reproducing, or failing to reproduce – the social distribution of knowledge' (Levine, 1986: 46).

Reading, writing and enumerating are viewed as meaningful cultural practices, learnt in specific cultural contexts (Baker & Street, 1991:2). Thus, uses of literacy and numeracy cannot be generalised across cultures, cannot be isolated or treated either as 'neutral' or as 'technical', and have implications for power relations. In fact, given that the meaning of literacy depends upon the social context in which it is embedded, and that the particular reading and writing practices taught depend upon social structures and the role of educational institutions, there cannot be a single, autonomous 'literacy'. It would be more appropriate to refer to multiple 'literacies'.

Up to the 1980s the focus of studies of 'modern' literacy was on the social contexts of modernisation and nation building, the social, economic and political conditions which coincided or determined various literacies. But the 1980s saw a change in emphasis in research methodologies to ethnographic studies, to describe groups of people within their own societal contexts. As a result of viewing literacy as social practice, Scribner (1983:5) stated that 'instead of conceiving literacy as involvement with written language that is the same everywhere and involves some fixed inventory of capacities, we began to think of literacy as a term applying to a varied and open set of activities with written language'. So for Scribner (1983), Street (1995, 1984) and others, literacy is a cultural and social construction of activity or practice in terms of recurrent and inter-related goal-directed actions.

So, what does this mean for us as literacy practitioners?

As we have seen the adult literacy field has been informed by a number of theories which to some extent reflected the various backgrounds and influences on people entering the field. There was no single informing theory or underpinning discourse.

Since the 1980s, we have seen the mainstreaming of literacy in vocational education, and literacy being constructed as the cornerstone of training reform. At the same time, the field has become more professionalised, with the introduction of formal qualifications for teachers, and the introduction of the National Framework, the National Reporting System and so on.

Has the adult literacy field been colonised by the dominant managerialist discourse? Is this why many practitioners are now feeling at the mercy of often competing discourses? Yet, some would argue that we should not be surprised at current trends, that the technicist/managerialist approaches are the logical extension of liberal-humanism.

We need to take a more radical approach. We need to be critiquing current discourses in terms of how education and training are being constructed. What has happened to 'learning' in the training packages?

We need to be asking whose interests are being served. Who is being marginalised in the current climate? How can we best assist them?

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