Literacy in American Lives

TLDR

The book traces how literacy learning conditions have evolved over the past century as experienced by Americans born between 1895 and 1985. It investigates the human impact of the economy’s growing reliance on workers’ literacy skills. The authors analyze more than 80 life histories from diverse backgrounds to examine how economic change creates inequality in literacy access and reward. The study shows that rising literacy standards have profoundly affected successive generations, prompting varied responses to changing literacy practices, and reveals unexpected ways in which literacy is lived across America.

Abstract

This book traces the changing conditions of literacy learning over the past century as they were felt in the lives of Americans born between 1895 and 1985. The book demonstrates what sharply rising standards for literacy have meant to successive generations of Americans and how they have responded to rapid changes in the meaning and methods of literacy learning in their society. Drawing on more than 80 life histories of Americans from all walks of life, the book addresses critical questions facing public education at the twenty-first century: What role does economic change play in creating inequality in access and reward for literacy? What is the human impact of the economy's growing reliance on the literacy skills of workers? This book gets beyond the usual laments about the crisis in literacy to offer an often surprising look into the ways that literacy is lived in America.