ABSTRACT
In recent decades, literacy has gradually become a major concern all over the world. A general awareness of the number of illiterates and the consequences of being illiterate for personal life has emerged, although literacy is no longer seen as a universal trait. The distribution and degree of literacy varies greatly across countries, which is why a focus on culturally-sensitive accounts of reading and writing is needed. A multiplicity of literacy practices can be distinguished and related to specific cultural contexts, specific power relations, and specific ideologies. As such, literacy can be seen as a context-bound set of practices that may vary as the individual’s needs change over time and place.
