ABSTRACT
The parallel concerns with the improvement of literacy and the understanding of literacy are not easily kept apart. Scholarly research on the implications of literacy are sometimes seen as attempts to justify the emphasis placed on literacy in developed and developing countries. The use of such research for policy and planning purposes is not inappropriate, but it is, I believe, somewhat misguided. Writing and literacy play a wide variety of roles in both modem and more traditional societies, and the emphasis placed on literacy and literacy programs should be based on those clearly specified functions. Writing either is or is not useful for conveying or exchanging information of certain kinds within and between social groups, for gaining access to the written archival forms of the culture, for establishing networks or communities of readers with similar interests and concerns, for carrying out bureaucratic or economic activities, and the like. To justify the place of literacy in a society, traditional or modem, by speculative notions like critical thinking, like a literate mentality, or like a modern outlook is a mistake. It must be justified on the basis of what role it plays or can play in the activities of a culture. Thus, the significance given to literacy in educational and developmental contexts should be based on these clearly utilitarian considerations.
