Lifelong Learning: Literacy, Schooling and the Adult World. Literacy and Learning Series, No. 2. Adult Literacy Research Network (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Review of Education, 2015
In a fast-changing and highly inequitable world, lifelong learning is becoming increasingly important, not only as a key organising principle for all forms of education and learning but also as an absolute necessity for everyone. It is particularly important for disadvantaged individuals and groups who have been excluded from or failed to acquire basic competencies through formal schooling. Within a lifelong learning framework, literacy and numeracy are viewed as foundation skills which are the core of basic education and indispensable to full participation in society. This article discusses recent developments in conceptualising literacy as a foundation of lifelong learning. Starting from the evolving notions of adult literacy, the author identifies some current trends, the most important being that literacy is now perceived as a learning continuum of different proficiency levels. Dichotomous states of being either "literate" or "illiterate" no longer apply. She analyses (1) findings extracted from UNESCO Member States' national reports submitted to the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) for the 2nd Global Report on Adult Learning and Education; (2) a desk study of national literacy campaigns and programmes as well as (3) some recent developments in formal education. Her suggested three-dimensional analytical framework considers literacy as a lifelong and life-wide learning process and as part of lifelong learning systems. She draws a number of conclusions for policy and practice of literacy as a foundation of lifelong learning. These conclusions are a timely contribution to the ongoing post-2015 education debate, in particular to the challenge of how to mainstream youth and adult literacy into the implementation of the sustainable development agenda for 2015-2030.
Editorial: The changing landscapes of literacy and adult education
European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 2020
Literacy, numeracy and language learning has always had a central place in adult education theory and practice. Over the various historical moments and contexts, its meaning, uses and importance have been changing considerably. It is difficult, therefore, to build a consistent and complete road map to literacy and adult education that takes into account every trend, theoretical approach and practical experience. However, it is important to consider the importance of Paulo Freire's work that started in the early 1960s in Northeast Brazil (Freire, 1965). His work calls attention to educational-political processes as being central for adults to regain their voices as citizens in the fight against oppression (Freire, 1997). It seems that in a number of societies and particularly during the 60s and the 70s, literacy was key to social change and a matter of social justice. Literacies, therefore, provide us with a lens for understanding the world. Literacies are without question interconnected with a number of structural conditions and inequalities, including social class, gender, ethnicity and especially with lack of power so these issues are frequently analysed within literacies studies and its connections to social inclusion and exclusion. For example, women globally have been a key group who have been oppressed in relation to literacy, numeracy and language learning. Because literacies are complex, nations try to tackle it using a wide range of approaches or methods, precisely because of its basic importance, not only for citizens, but also for social, cultural and economic national systems. Literacies can be an integrating issue in public policies and a way of increasing social inclusion. Literacy studies, once strong in community adult education, have branched out to include new forms of literacies such as language literacy (with migrants), health literacy, digital literacy and workplace literacy. There have also been, in the last decades, various understandings of adult literacies. For example, functional approaches focus on the citizens' uses of literacy and numeracy in every day-life activities. For some time such approaches seemed innovative and were linked, in many countries, with systems of recognition of prior learning. Other ways of
Lifelong literacy: Towards a new agenda
International Review of Education 61:265–272, 2015
The Dakar Framework for Action (UNESCO 2000) aimed for basic education for all, including a massive improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015. It provided a framework which strove to effect education as a fundamental human right, requiring countries to strengthen their efforts to ensure that the basic learning needs of every citizen were met. The six Education for All (EFA) goals agreed on at the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000 aimed to (1) expand and improve early childhood education; (2) ensure universal access to primary education; (3) ensure equitable access for all to appropriate learning programmes; it aimed to (4) improve the levels of adult literacy by 50 per cent; (5) eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education; and (6) improve the quality of education. These six goals were encapsulated in the second of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aimed at ‘‘achieving universal primary education’’ by 2015 (UN 2000); an aim which has not, in fact, been achieved. UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova states that ‘‘15 years of monitoring shows sobering results’’ (UNESCO 2015, Foreword). As the target year for the EFA goals and the MDGs draws to a close, reflections on the achievements and the lack of progress have fed into debates concerning the vision, shape and scope of the post-2015 education agenda and how it might be integrated with the post-2015 sustainable development agenda.
DEVELOPING LIFELONG LEARNING COMPETENCES THROUGH LITERACY
MEDIATING GLOBALIZATION: Identities in Dialogue , 2018
In the post-modern knowledge based society, we are still having a quite big percent of the youth that are having social integration difficulties due to poor writting-reading and communication competences. The problem is a global one and it is affecting, according to OECD studies, 20% of the European younth and 40 to 50% of the Romanian one, reason for the European experts to talk in their Report of 2012 about a literacy crisis and for insisting on taking immediate measures for fighting this scourge. Starting from the belief that today's school's mission is to prepare students for active integration in social life and lifelong learning, as teachers' trainers, we often ask ourselves: What is the teachers' role, when and what strategies are more efficient in increasing the youth education level? This study is proposing solutions for teachers of all specialities at developing students' competences on comprehending, interpretating and reflecting on literary and non-literary texts, using active reading and meta-cognitive techniques.
Literacy, Adults and Diversity. Literacy & Learning Series, No. 1
1996
This book contains eight papers reporting research projects that were conducted by adult language, literacy, and numeracy practitioners with funding provided through one-time scholarships to Tasmanian students in the field of adult language and literacy. The following papers are included: "Foreword" (Ian Falk); Adult Literacy Research Network Power and Discourse Power is not a concept which can be examined in isolation and theorised about, instead it is important to examine it in operation in everyday communication because it has a pervasive effect on Discourse. As Fairclough (1979, p. 13) says, "one aspect of power is the capacity to impose and maintain a particular structuring of some domain or other". We all unconsciously acquire and consciously learn this structuring as we communicate with each other. The distinction between acquisition and learning is important to differentiate because when we later examine the assessment Discourse we will see that the assessment attempts to measure both processes. Gee (1990, p. 146) makes a very clear distinction between the two. He states, Acquisition is a process of acquiring something subconsciously by exposure to models, a process of trial and error, and practice within social groups, without formal teaching. It happens in natural settings which are meaningful and functional in the sense that acquirers know that they need to acquire the thing they are exposed to in order to function and they in fact want to so function... Learning is a process that involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching (though not necessarily from someone officially designated a teacher) or through certain life-experiences that trigger conscious reflection. This teaching or reflection involves explanation and analysis, that is, breaking down the thing to be learned into its analytic parts... Acquisition and learning enable an individual to fit into particular Discourses within society (because he or she knows the structure) and there is one particular Discourse that is easy to slot into because it is very closely identified with. This particular discourse is called by Gee (1990) the "primary Discourse". This primary Discourse then provides a framework for the acquisition and learning of other Discourses that then enable more (secondary) Discourses to be learned and acquired. Thus, an elaborate interaction of Discourses is built up within an individual and all these are going to influence communication even when only one dominant Discourse is thought to be operating. An assessment Discourse will therefore not be a simple straightforward communication process. Communication between people depends on the knowledge and value systems that have been acquired and learned over time and how these operate within the Discourse. All the experiences of an individual will be present. Gee (1995, unpublished) calls these experiences "situated assemblies" and they will determine the communication process in the assessment interview. 9 17 Adult Literacy Research Network about reading and writing, but how they feel about it and how they feel about themselves as learners" (Osmond, Barin & Partlin, 1990, p. 2). The two macro skills of reading and writing relate to the client's knowledge. When I attempt to determine the client's stage of reading development, I try to select tasks from the client's social context so that the tasks become authentic. The reading tasks I have range in complexity from supermarket catalogues and signs to newspaper and journal articles. The client can then choose what task to read and is able to succeed usually with only minimal assistance. I am able to observe the reading strategies used, the types of text that the client is familiar with and how the client obtains meaning from the text (ALBE, 1992). Writing skills are also assessed in the interview if the client is willing to put pen to paper (some are not). Again the client is presented with a broad range of tasks and selects something from his/her social context that will enable a successful writing outcome. The skills and strategies that I observe include fluency of script and appropriateness to the task, knowledge of conventions of punctuation, spelling strategies used, knowledge and use of a range of text forms or genres and knowledge of the communicative purpose of writing (ALBE, 1992). Numeracy skills are not always assessed during the interview. Many clients are reluctant to discuss their numeracy skills but when it is possible to include numeracy I try to discover with the client what daily numeracy activities they are involved with and whether they have a broader understanding and application of numeracy. The affective aspects that become apparent in the assessment interview include the two macro skills of speaking and listening, and other areas such as confidence when asked to undertake a task, perceptions of self as a learner, perceptions of self as a reader/writer, perceptions of numeracy, and goals that the client may have. All of these aspects are going to influence how the client will approach training and will enable more effective program planning to occur.