ABSTRACT
One of the new issues brought out here relates to social action. Because of our understanding that politics are much broader than activities in the formal public arena, we have perhaps come to downplay women’s efforts in that arena and how far literacy and language are factors in those efforts. Three authors (Anna Robinson-Pant, Chapter 1, Brian Street, Chapter 3, and Donna Bulman, Chapter 10) mention rights-based education. This is a pointer to a new interest in legal literacy and in women’s struggle as a struggle for justice. In some countries it is about equality with men, in others it is about men and women allied against a dominant or alien group, as in Palestine or southern Sudan. Research is needed across the whole spectrum of women’s political action and its interplay with literacy.
