The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) was a collaborative effort by seven governments and three intergovernmental organizations to describe and compare the literacy skills of people from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Each country drew a probability sample from which results…

By 1979, nonmetro Hispanics trailed Whites and metro Hispanics in rates of high school graduation, college completion, and functional literacy; their relative position for these worsened during the seventies, despite absolute gains. While nonmetro Hispanic school enrollments for ages 3-15 compared favorably with other groups in 1978, 36% of…

Data drawn from 3 cycles of data collection for the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) were analyzed to identify the levels and distributions of literacy skills in the adult populations of 20 countries. The following were among the main conclusions: (1) in 14 of the countries, at least 15% of all adults have literacy skills at only the…