America’s Choice
Literacy or Productivity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12009972 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Theodore Lewis (0000-0002-3426-3744, University of Minnesota, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 391-421 |
| Publication date | 1997-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Curriculum Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0362-6784 • E-ISSN: 1467-873X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/0362-6784.00062 |
| OpenAlex | W1966649434 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 35 |
With investment in human capital an urgent economic imperative in America’s quest for competitiveness, policymakers and analysts have focused on the bottom half of the labor force. In doing so their vision of literacy has been constricted by workplace needs. The literacy discourse is framed in terms of what workplaces, not adults, need. The curriculum follows efficiency criteria, not straying from the workplace context. I argue that this view of the problem fits Bhola’s motivational developmental/ structural-developmental explanation of how national governments view the problem of adult literacy. I argue further that this workplace-based approach to illiteracy leaves the root causes of the problem—such as inequality of opportunity in the society—substantially intact, and that what is needed is a grander conception in line with Dewey’s vocationalism and consistent with his democratic ideal
Context (archaeology · Curriculum · Democracy · Economic growth · Economics · Functional illiteracy · Human capital · Ideal (ethics · Inequality · Literacy · Pedagogy · Political science · Productivity · Sociology · Education Methods and Practices · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law
Keeping track
Minority education and caste
In the age of the smart machine
Schooling in capitalist America
Industrial Culture and the School
Adult Literacy and Basic Education in Europe and North America
Prospects for Adult Literacy in a Period of Economic Austerity∗
Apprenticeship as a Transition to Adulthood in West Germany
Race and Curriculum
The Contribution of Prior Knowledge and Coherent Text to Comprehension
What Do Adults Read
Job Literacy
Reading in the Real World and Its Correlates
Toward an Interactive-Compensatory Model of Individual Differences in the Development of Reading Fluency
Can Youth Apprenticeship Thrive in the United States
Prospects for an American-Style Youth Apprenticeship System
Are Cognitive Skills Context-Bound
Situated Learning and Education
The 1987 Presidential Address Learning In School and Out
Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning
Situated Learning
Restructuring Students for Restructured Work
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1998 - 2008 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |