ABSTRACT
Literacy is particularly relevant to the understanding of education and of the role of education in the contemporary world. The conventional wisdom is that education confers the gift of literacy upon its subjects. In the educational field, an expanded sense of literacy incorporates a range of areas of competence: historical literacy, media literacy, visual literacy and so on. Starting with the Newbolt Report of 1921, a school offers literacy at least partly in terms of correcting and improving the literacy of certain social groups. Thus, promotion of literacy through schooling could be considered as being about empowerment, yet some contemporary thinking suggests otherwise. The modern history of literacy is bound up with the history of the social division of labour and maintenance of social hierarchies determined by occupation. The modern history of literacy is bound up with the history of the social division of labour and maintenance of social hierarchies determined by occupation.
