ABSTRACT

This chapter seeks to accept the notion that strong pressures exist to change the nature of jobs and the structure of firms without also concluding that worker preparedness, and low literacy levels in particular, are responsible for American firms' slow response to new competitive conditions. The view of literacy as being essentially about the empowerment of particular groups seems to stand in direct opposition to the idea that literacy is a tool for enlightenment. The assertion of links between literacy rates and economic advancement is hardly new. In a broad sense, literacy has been seen as one of the preconditions for capitalist growth. Traditional ways of thinking about literacy support institutional responses of questionable effectiveness. There is so much bad and vague writing about literacy that one is tempted to ignore it all and begin with a clean slate in analyzing the relationship between literacy and the restructuring of work in the post-Fordist work-place.