This Palgrave Pivot examines the history of literacy with illiterate and semi-literate people in mind, and questions the clear division between literacy and illiteracy which has often been assumed by social and economic historians. Instead, it turns the spotlight on all those in-between, the millions who had some literacy skills, but for whom reading and writing posed difficulties. Its main focus is on those we have often labelled ‘illiterates’, rather than those who enjoyed full competence in reading and writing in modern society. In offering a historical perspective on the ‘problem’ of illiteracy in the modern world, it also questions some enduring myths surrounding the phenomenon. This book therefore has a revisionist objective: it intends to challenge conventional wisdom about illiteracy.
Author(s): Martyn Lyons
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 118
City: Cham
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Illiteracy Myths
The Literacy Spectrum
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach
Splendour and Misery of the Signature Test
What Was Illiteracy?
Chapter 2: The War on Illiteracy
How Illiteracy Got Its Stigma
Illiteracy, Orality and ‘Backwardness’
Campaigns Against Illiteracy
Stamping Out Illiteracy: USSR and Nicaragua
Paulo Freire
Chapter 3: Illiteracy and Power
The Oral and the Illiterate
Denying the Right to Literacy
Parental Censorship
Choosing Illiteracy
Chapter 4: Illiteracy and Schooling
Illiteracy Panics
The Limitations of Formal Schooling
Becoming Literate Without Schools
The Demand for Literacy
Chapter 5: The Literary Culture of the Illiterate
The City as a Text
Reading and Listening
Delegated Writing
World War One as a National Literacy Test
Illiterates Count
Invisible Illiteracy
Chapter 6: The Literacy Continuum
Historicising Illiteracy
Imperfect Literacies
The Example of China
Select Bibliography
Index
