Liberty and Literacy

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Liberty and Literacy
Perspectives of Literacy Conventional Functional
Cultural Critical Hegemony
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Literacy

• Literacy rates are affected by differences in
  social class, race, gender, region and social
  need
• To be illiterate is to be significantly
  handicapped in todays society
• Literacy depends on the social setting and
  workplace needs.
• What counts as adequate literacy for management
  might not be adequate from the workers
  perspective.
• What is adequate literacy in once social setting
  may not be adequate in another
• Literacy can depend on the function we wish it to
  serve in a given context

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Conventional Literacy

• Ability to read, write and comprehend
• 1980 Census found that 99.5 of U.S. adults were
  literate by this definition
• Determined by self-reporting of grade levels
  completed and if they could read and write
• What about all of those that did not answer the
  Census questionnaire?
• Can the respondents read and write in English?

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Functional Literacy

• Using printed and written information to function
  in society to achieve ones goals and to develop
  ones knowledge and potential
• US Army during World War II defined it as
• the capability to understand written
  instructions necessary for conducting basic
  militant functions and tasksa fifth grade
  reading level
• In the mid 70s the University of Texas used an
  index called the Adult Performance Level (APL).
  Tested how well adults could function in
  sixty-five tasks requiring literacy skills in
  everyday life.
• 20-60 of those tested failed to perform
  successfully at tasks such as writing a check
  that a bank could process, addressing an envelope
  adequately, figuring the difference in price
  between a new and used appliance, etc.

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APL cont

• 16 of whites, 44 of blacks and 56 of
• Latinos were functionally illiterate
• Many objected to the functional literacy
  perspective because it has as its goal the
  competence to function at the lowest levels of
  mechanical performance, instead of indicating a
  more ambitious conception of literacy.

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Cultural Literacy

• Not just to read in the technical sense of the
  word, but to be culturally literate, knowing
  historical names, geographical places, authors
  a basic foundation of knowledge to give meaning
  to words
• E.D. Hirsch introduced the idea of cultural
  literacy in 1987. Believes that understanding
  words depends on a great deal of background
  knowledge of cultural institutions and values.
• See illustration on page 253
• Cultural Literacy has been criticized as the
  trivial pursuit approach to education

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Critical Literacy

• Literacy is associated with power--Those with
  
• power are able to define knowledge
• Goal for literacy should be to empower
• people to criticize and change political and
  
• economic oppression.
• How knowledge and power are interrelated
• It is the ability to understand and act
• against the social relations of oppression.
• economic, political, racial, ethnic, gender
  
• and social class
• Sometimes known as the emancipatory
• literacy

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HEGEMONYUnequal power relationships between two
or more cultures, ideologies, socioeconomic groups
A small minority of U.S. citizens control the
political and economic institutions that shape
the beliefs, values, and behavior of most of the
population Ideological hegemony argues that the
social, political, and economic institutions of
this society serve a relatively small group at
the expense of the majority of citizens
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Hegemony theory summarized

• Institutional elites who share common economic
  and political interests control the dominant
  political and economic institutions of the U.S.
• Though they may disagree on particular policies
  or strategies, these institutional elites share a
  common world view, or ideology, which reflects
  and justifies the organization of dominant
  institutions.
• Through such institutions as the government,
  workplace, school, and mass media, the general
  populance is socialized into accepting these rules

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Hegemony theory summarized cont

• Although ruling ideas do not reflect the
  experience of all social classes, they serve to
  limit discussion and debate, to prevent the
  formation of alternative social explanations, and
  to promote a general acceptance of the status quo.

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Mass Media and Cultural Hegemony

• Polls show that print and broadcast journalists
  receive the bulk of their information on domestic
  and foreign policy from other journalists in
  mainstream news media that represent the dominant
  corporate-government ideology
• Example Americans are told of a developing
  country turning to communists and that this is a
  threat to our national interest. What the public
  does not hear is what constitutes our national
  interest in these developing nations. History
  shows that we can tolerate deep differences in
  ideology with our business partners in the third
  world.

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Schooling and Cultural Hegemony

• Ideological hegemony theory suggests that it is
  not consent, but compliance, that is fostered in
  the schools, and that both the organization and
  the curriculum of schools are responsible for
  this compliance.
• While schools contribute to functional and
  cultural literacy of the citizenry, they also
  obstruct democratic tendencies by socializing
  students to be uncritical followers in a social
  order where major decisions are made by an elite
  few.

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Hegemonic Processes in Schooling

• Hierarchical distribution of power
• Unequal power relationships
• Students must obey not only the authority of the
  teachers knowledge but institutionalized
  authority in the form of school rules as well
• Teachers have authority over students, principals
  have authority over teachers, etc
• Teachers often tell students that they themselves
  do not agree with a rule (I.e. grading) but must
  do so because of rules

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• The nature of student work
• Work and only work is compulsorywork because it
  is assigned, not because it is interesting
• Nature of schooling is to compete for the scarce
  rewards for good work
• Successes and failures are due to our individual
  talents and achievements, not to faults in the
  school
• This personalization of school failure eventually
  helps legitimize the unequal distribution of
  goods in contemporary society

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• Social stratification within the school structure
• Students are grouped by skill level, by IQ score,
  age, classroom behavior
• Grouping results in different kinds of education
  and opportunities for success
• Different income groups and different races
  occupy different tracks both in and out of school
• That black, Hispanic and poor white females
  should occupy the bottom of the social order does
  not seem surprising to people who long ago came
  to accept this in their school experience

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• Justification for such a state of affairs rests
  in the view that people deserve what they get
  because of their performance levels in the
  competitive school system
• Curriculum material also reinforces dominant
  ideology by rarely criticizing our economic and
  political system and routinely criticizes other
  systems