Functional Literacy
Theoretical issues and educational implications
1st Edition
Published on 14. April 1994
VIII, 493 pages
978-90-272-8301-6 (ISBN)
Description
The purpose of the volume is to open up new perspectives in the study of literacy by bringing together current research findings from linguistics, psychology, sociology and anthropology. The book divides into five parts. The first part deals with theoretical questions related to the definition and the modeling of the construct of functional literacy. The second part goes into the notion of literacy development. Both societal and individual aspects of literacy development are taken into account. In the next two parts the actual achievement of literacy in various regions of the world is dealt with. In part 3 the focus is on attaining literacy in developing societies, and in part 4 on attaining literacy in industrialized societies. In the final part the question is raised how functional literacy can be promoted through education. Starting from a cross-cultural perspective the central issue is how standards of functional literacy can be established throughout the world.
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Content
- FUNCTIONAL LITERACY: THEORETICAL ISSUES AND EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
- Editorial page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Modeling and promoting functional literacy
- Distribution of (il)literacy
- Modeling functional literacy
- Autonomous and ideological models of literacy
- Modeling the competence of functional literacy
- Literacy and development
- The power of literacy
- Background of literacy problems
- Promoting functional literacy
- Research on literacy education in developing societies
- Research on literacy education in industrialized societies
- The present volume
- Part 1: The construct of functional literacy
- Part 2: Literacy and development
- Part 3: Attaining literacy in developing societies
- Part 4: Attaining literacy in industrialized societies
- Part 5: Promoting functional standards of literacy
- References
- Part1: The construct of functional literacy
- Literacy, myths and legacies: lessons from the history of literacy
- Towards a historical account of literacy
- Multiple strands of literacy
- 1. 'Elementary' or 'basic' literacy
- 2. Literacy in relation to civilization
- 3. Multiple literacies
- Literacy and education
- Lessons from the history of literacy
- Lesson 1
- Lesson 2
- Lesson 3
- Lesson 4
- Lesson 5
- Lesson 6
- Lesson 7
- Lesson 8
- Thoughts for the future
- Notes
- References
- The construct of oral and written language
- A linguistic perspective on written language
- General equivalence between oral and written language
- The conception of written units
- Uses of written language
- Conclusions
- Notes
- References
- Text processing and its relevance for literacy
- A psycholinguistic approach to reading
- Reading as processing information from the text
- Visual perception
- Word recognition
- Syntactic parsing
- Semantic analysis
- Text understanding
- Text representation
- Reading as controlled by the reader
- The comprehensibility of texts
- Conclusions
- References
- Cross-cultural perspectives on literacy
- Literacy and identity
- Personhood and literacy across cultures
- Literacies as sites of negotiation
- Literacy and contextual variation
- Literacy in non-European contexts
- Literacies in Urban America
- Perspective
- References
- Functional literacy in a changing world
- The information infra-structure of modern societies
- Channels for communication
- Changing relations between channels
- A future for functional literacy?
- The notion of functionality
- Functional literacy and communicative competence
- Literacy, work and political participation
- Literacy and the labor market
- Citizenship and political participation
- Conclusions and discussion
- References
- Part 2: Literacy and development
- Literacy and the making of the Western mind
- Conceptual implications of literacy
- Principle 1
- Principle 2
- Principle 3
- Principle 4
- Principle 5
- Principle 6
- Principle 7
- Principle 8
- Perspective
- Acknowledgements
- References
- The cognitive psychology of literacy: some basic findings
- Final remark
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Socio-cultural determinants of literacy development
- The social context of literacy development
- The Rotterdam survey
- Text-genres and levels of difficulty
- Prevalence of 'full·' and 'semi-illiteracy'
- Socio-cultural determinants of literacy attainment
- The individual's socio-cultural niche
- Results of structural covariance analysis
- Conclusions and discussion
- Note
- References
- The social impact of literacy
- Background of the study
- A social view of literacy
- Promoting literacy in adults
- Note:
- References
- Linguistic diversity and literacy development
- Literacy instruction for ethnic minorities
- Literacy needs
- Literacy instruction models
- Literacy policies
- The debate on bilingual literacy instruction
- Empirical evidence
- Psychological claims
- Socio-political constraints
- Becoming literate in a first and second language
- Structure of L2 decoding processes
- Structure of L2 discourse processes
- Universale in first and second language literacy
- Individual differences in literacy achievement
- Literacy achievement in an L2 submersion context
- Literacy achievement in a transitional context
- Interdependencies in biliteracy learning
- Perspective
- Bibliography
- Part 3: Attaining literacy in developing societies
- Problems and pseudo-problems in literacy development: focus on Latin America
- The present situation
- Brief account of literacy as a cognitive development
- Is 'functional literacy' a right term to speak about literacy?
- The objectives of literacy
- Pseudo-problems that become obstacles to literacy acquisition
- References
- Continua of biliteracy: Quechua literacy and empowerment in Peru
- Continua of biliteracy
- The continua of biliterate contexts
- The continua of biliterate development in the individual
- The continua of biliterate media
- The case of Quechua speakers in Peru
- Three cases of functional Quechua literacy
- Promoting the Quechua language
- Teaching the Word of God
- Promulgating Quechua knowledge
- Functional Quechua literacy
- Quechua literacy and empowerment
- Notes
- References
- Literacy education and gender: the case of Honduras
- Female literacy in countries in the South
- The gender gap in literacy
- Explanations of high female illiteracy
- Obstacles for adult women to participate in literacy programs
- The importance of literacy (programs) for women
- Policy for female literacy
- Literacy programs for women
- Programs for the empowerment of women
- Methodological issues
- Different approaches
- Literacy programs
- A case study in Honduras
- The IHDER/ANACH literacy program
- Reasons for non-participation and dropping out
- The female participants in the literacy program
- Concluding remarks
- Note
- References
- Literacy and development in South-East Asia
- Literacy traditions
- Literacy and development
- Literacy programs
- Literacy figures
- Cultural significance of literacy
- Literacy, language and nation
- Conclusions
- References
- Literacy and development in Africa: the case of Tanzania
- The conceptsof literacy and development
- Periodization of adult education
- Pre-independence to 1964
- 1965 to 1985
- Experimental World Literacy Project
- National Literacy Campaign
- The results of the National Literacy Campaign in 1975
- The results of mass campaigns
- Supporting programs for literacy work in Tanzania
- The Rural Newspapers Education Program
- The Rural Libraries Education Program
- The Radio Education Program
- The Film Education Program
- Work-Oriented Education Projects
- The Post-Literacy Curriculum
- Correspondence Education
- The Folk Development Colleges
- The impact of functional literacy
- Note
- References
- Part 4: Attaining literacy in industrialized societies
- Writing systems and literacy: the alphabetic myth revisited
- The alphabetic myth
- Literacy in China and Japan
- Historical perspective
- Literacy rates
- Comparing Chinese and Japanese writing systems
- Comparison with alphabetic litera
- Illiteracy in Japan
- The myth revisited
- A moderate version of the myth
- How much truth is in the myth?
- Conclusions and discussion
- References
- Assessment of adult literacy levels: the Dutch case
- Design of the study
- Sampling
- Instruments
- Scoring
- The nature of functional illiteracy
- The degree of functional illiteracy
- Conclusions
- References
- Emergent literacy and education
- Psychogenesis of written language in children
- Early differentiation
- Syllabic hypothesis
- Understanding the conventions of writing
- Social construction of writing and reading in school settings
- Creating a literate environment
- Educational continuity and early literacy
- Narrative and literacy development
- Oral and written narratives
- From research to education practice
- Final remarks
- References
- Towards a taxonomy of early literacy difficulties
- Individual differences in literacy development
- Independent variables
- Dependent variables
- Different categories of reading difficulties
- General cognitive deficits
- Specific lower level deficits
- Spreading lower level deficits
- Higher level impairments
- The distinction between the categories of reading difficulties
- Intervention
- General cognitive deficits
- Lower level deficits
- Higher level impairments
- Conclusions and discussion
- References
- Dialogue systems and interactive literacy instruction
- Literacy instruction in a historical perspective
- Literacy as communication
- Language technology and dialogue theory
- Design of the instructional dialogue
- Skill versus knowledge
- Conclusions and discussion
- References
- Part 5: Promoting functional standards of literacy
- A comparative perspective on functional literacy levels
- Comparative studies on literacy assessment
- Defining functional literacy
- Schooling and literacy
- The quality-quantity trade-off
- Curriculum-based survey research as an evaluation technology
- Dimensions of evaluation research
- Sampling and methodology
- Test and questionnaire development
- Data collection and storage
- Survey management skills
- The value of survey research
- An example of a literacy study survey
- The IEA Reading Literacy Project
- Criteria for suitable test items
- The process of international scaling
- Perspective
- Note
- References
- Towards a socio-cultural model of literacy education
- Literacy and culture
- Communication and cultural networks
- The meaning of literacy for the individual and society
- Literacy and societal development
- Growing need for literacy
- Motivation for literacy
- Language and literacy
- Towards a socio-cultural model of literacy education
- The curriculum
- A case study in Colombia
- Follow-up
- Research perspectives
- Conclusions and discussion
- References
- The question of functionality in literacy: a systematic approach
- A systemic functional model of language
- An overview of the model
- Educational implications
- Towards a genre-based approach to literacy education
- Implementation of genre-based literacy programs
- A model of pedagogy
- Spoken and written language
- Choices of genres
- The role of the teacher
- 'Functional literacy' in perspective
- An expanded model of functional literacy
- References
- Literacy for work programs
- Changes in ideas on literacy programs
- Towards environment-oriented literacy
- Functional literacy and development
- Literacy and work programs
- Basic characteristics of literacy for work
- The target group
- Environmental orientation
- Focus on indigenous knowledge
- Community involvement
- The participation of the beneficiaries
- The baseline study
- Workshops as a means to participation
- Conclusions and discussion
- Notes
- References
- Literacy in a global perspective: the year 2000 and beyond
- Present-day literacy research in global perspective
- Defining and redefining literacy
- Acquisition of literacy
- Retention of literacy
- Individual and social consequences of literacy
- Possibilities and probabilities for the year 2000 and beyond
- Technology
- Multi-sectoral approaches
- Design of materials
- Assessment and evaluation
- Mother tongue and second language issues
- Conclusion: The future is not what it used to be
- Notes
- References
- Subject index
- List of contributors
