The Making of Literate Societies - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David R. Olson is University Professor and Professor of Applied Cognitive Science at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

Nancy Torrance is Senior Research Officer at the International Centre for Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

David R. Olson and Nancy Torrance edited the Blackwell Handbook of Education and Human Development (Blackwell Publishers, 1995).

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This volume highlights the role of literacy in social development and the directions that governments and other agencies should take in designing their literacy programmes. The contributors, who are field workers, educational psychologists, sociologists, policy-makers, and development studies scholars, discuss the direction of literacy policy with regard to developing countries and marginalized segments of developed ones.

The volume is divided into two major sections. The first examines literacy as a social practice in what have already become 'literate societies'. As this section makes clear, literacy development reflects both the intrinsic structure of the society and reshapes those activities and institutions around texts and other founding documents. The second part examines, through carefully chosen case studies, ongoing literacy projects, programmes and other initiatives in developing societies in Asia, Africa and Central and South America.