The most educationally disadvantaged population in the United States resides in our nation's prisons. Incarcerated adults have among the lowest academic skill levels and highest disability and illiteracy rates of any segment of our society--factors that likely contributed to their imprisonment. Upon completing their sentence, most inmates re-enter…

The Salvadoran educator J. Portillo describes popular education practiced in El Salvador in the midst of civil war. Salvadoran popular education is organized by members of the community who receive it and is usually led by nonprofessional educators. Most popular education is in literacy or at the elementary level. (SLD)

Studies reasons undereducated adults decide not to participate in adult education with 12 female and 8 male (18 African American and 2 white) adults interviewed in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania). Memories of early schooling were a powerful factor affecting the decision. Adult education methodology can benefit greatly from research into early schooling.…

Describes outreach services that children's librarians can develop to help solve the problems of illiteracy and aliteracy. Highlights include story hours; cooperation with school library media specialists; outreach programs for day care or early childhood centers, family day care homes, low-income housing projects, and community centers; and…

Education for All (an international movement of governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society and the media) set objectives in Jomtien (1990) and reaffirmed in Dakar (2000) that, among other things, work towards all children having access to free, compulsory, good quality primary education by 2015. School dropout may hinder the…

According to this report, many Canadians lack basic skills of literacy and numeracy. As many as 6.9 million Canadian adults, or 1 of every 6 working Canadians, may require some literacy training. This paper outlines the extent of illiteracy and innumeracy in Canada and presents an overview of actions being taken alone or in partnerships by…

This paper overviews a proposal for implementing an adult literacy program in a small tribal community in northern Alberta (Canada). The program would enhance participants' ability to manage change affecting the community's economic, social, and educational circumstances. Recent data indicate that 24 percent of Native Americans in northern Alberta…

Sixteen chapters discuss the relationship among literacy, culture, and difference in education; restructuring school curricula to meet the needs of those traditionally excluded from education's dominant discourse; the social and cultural context of literacy; and literacy's highly political nature. After "Series Introduction: Literacy,…

This report contains materials from a workshop on the production and use of audiovisual, printed, and folk media as literacy follow-up materials. Chapter I contains the proceedings and consists of an introduction, objective, and summaries of opening speeches, technical/academic presentations, group work, and closing speeches. Chapter II provides…

The United States confronts the problem of a large and growing prison population, the majority of which is insufficiently literate. Added to the general effects of educational disability are the marginalizing factors of ethnicity, class, socioeconomic deprivation, and other handicaps. Historically, the situation in prison literacy is 150 years of…

Concern that Canadian Native illiteracy was being ignored or addressed ineffectively prompted this report, which includes a literature review, findings from a survey in several Native communities, and an overview of innovative practices and illustrative programs. The survey, conducted with 56 potential literacy learners from 8 geographically and…

This article is an exploration of differences among adults studying beginning English as a Second Language (ESL). Data was obtained through interviews with 20 Washington, DC-area Spanish-speaking adults enrolled in beginning ESL classes who had a range of different literacy levels in their first language. The interviews included two phases, one…

This document is a set of two volumes that contain prize-winning newspaper articles and summaries of radio and television shows selected as part of the Media Resource Project on Literacy. Items in the 1988-89 book include the following: "Why Daddy Can't Read" (Sally L. Gilman); "The Triumph of Jimmy Sanchez" (Sandra Macias); "Illiteracy:…

This study identified the needs, aspirations, and hindrances defining and delineating adult literacy education in the Riverina region, New South Wales, Australia. Information sources were policy, opinion, memories, literature, and statistics. A profile of the region showed that the population was basically white and of Anglo-Saxon heritage.…

This yearbook volume is devoted to the theme of literacy. By analyzing the present situation and the quantitative evolution of literacy and illiteracy in the world and by examining efforts to expand schooling and the provision of adult education, this volume studies the origins of illiteracy and the factors that encourage its reduction or its…