ABSTRACT
There is an increasing societal concern about the development of literacy. The notion that a literacy crisis exists is fairly generally subscribed to, but the specific definition of the crisis being referred to varies enormously, as a function of the discourse community where the crisis is being discussed. For those concerned primarily with the developing world, the term literacy crisis invokes the crucial role of literacy in economic development combined with restricted literacy skills in the population, limited access to schooling, and the challenges of implementing universal schooling and adult literacy programs simultaneously. In countries with generally high literacy rates, including those in North America and Europe, the term literacy crisis refers to severe inequities in the distribution of literacy skills-to the fact that members of immigrant and minority groups and children attending the schools that serve these groups are at enormously higher risk of failure than the population as a whole. In yet other developed nations with close to universal literacy, literacy crisis is used to refer to the fact that the literacy skills members of the workforce possess are insufficient to meet the new challenges associated with the increasingly sophisticated technical, electronic, and computer-based demands of even blue-collar jobs. Finally, another sense in which literacy crisis is used refers to the aliteracy of technically literate individuals. Examples cited in this regard are varied: Children progressing satisfactorily through school nonetheless spend much less time reading than did children of 50 years ago; best-selling books for adults are more likely to be how-to books or “trash” fiction than good literature; and widely shared conversation about the products of great authors has been replaced by shared conversations about television programs and computer software.
