ABSTRACT
The ability to read and write are usually regarded as a birthright in this country. The transmission of reading skills to the general public has been part of the agenda for American education since the initiation of the public school movement (Cook-Gumperz, 1986; Graff, 1979; Soltow and Stevens, 1981). What we mean by that right, however, has changed with time and place. As Resnick and Resnick (1977) were the first to point out, expectations for literacy skills have not been constant. When Protestant reformers achieved nearly universal literacy in England and Sweden in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, they considered the recall of familiar texts without interpretation or writing to be an adequate measure of literacy skills. Educators in the elite technical schools of France, by contrast, demanded the interpretation and application of novel ideas (Resnick and Resnick, 1977).
