tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5570507847338487637.post6946974667995335124..comments2023-10-12T08:04:06.781-04:00Comments on literacies café: monday morning bluesliteracies publisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17857629139253650971noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5570507847338487637.post-4571049131332302872007-07-31T12:57:00.000-04:002007-07-31T12:57:00.000-04:00Thank you for your comments. I posted the article ...Thank you for your comments. I posted the article to generate thoughtful discussion.<BR/><BR/>Yours,<BR/>Rhonda Sussman<BR/>Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW)RShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07319517204230854613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5570507847338487637.post-10706405891166821712007-07-31T12:43:00.000-04:002007-07-31T12:43:00.000-04:00Here's my response to the CSEW blog:I’m disappoint...Here's my response to the CSEW blog:<BR/><BR/>I’m disappointed that this press release was reproduced rather than discussed. This study is part of a larger project by the OECD, via Statistics Canada, to link literacy and economic productivity. Out of context, as this post is, the results of IALLS are quite often used against working people with the least education and therefore privilege. One piece of context that could have been illuminating is another paper that Stats Can released last year showing that whether or not your employer pays for training and retraining depends greatly on your level of education. We all know that access to higher education is still highly correlated with socioeconomic status, so this means that the educated get richer and the poor are kept in McJobs. Last year’s report showed that people with university education are most likely be in jobs that pay for some, if not all, of the work-related training. Meanwhile, people who come to adult literacy programs include those who have been told that they now need a GED to do the job they've been doing for the past 10 or 15 years... And media discussions of literacy continue to focus on blaming individuals who struggle with literacy for Canada’s “low productivity” and “lack of competitiveness”. <BR/><BR/>Nor do our governments seem keen to change things. As Veeman, Ward and Walker point out in Valuing Literacy: Rhetoric or Reality (Detselig, 2006), the way adult education is structured and funded in this country is nothing short of ‘creaming’ – those who need the most help with literacy are the least likely to get support. That is, “the emphasis has been on sustaining meritocracy rather than on producing social equity… Literacy in countries such as Canada is seen as the individual’s problem to be solved, and the rampant individualism that has damaged trust, fairness, and social bonds has not served to raise literacy levels.” (p. 105) <BR/><BR/>Another piece of puzzle is the fact that literacy – a continuum of interaction with print – is being reduced year by year to a very finite list of decontextualized ‘skills’ which are increasingly being used to classify, label and exclude people. <BR/><BR/>The space to talk about who does and does not have access to education, and whose interests are served by what education is offered, is shrinking every day. That is not to say the discussion isn’t happening. Here are some examples that I hope will serve as useful connections: <BR/><BR/>* Discussion of the links between violence and difficulties in school: http://www.learningandviolence.net/<BR/><BR/>* Discussion of the particular issues faced by indigenous people: <BR/>http://www.nila.ca/practitioners<BR/><BR/>* A recent report about research in practice in adult literacy includes a chapter that documents the very real limits that prevent adults from improving their literacy ‘skills’, including the appalling working conditions in adult literacy: http://ripal.literacy.bc.ca/Jan5LiteracyBook.pdf<BR/><BR/>Feel free, too, to check out back issues of Literacies, which is a forum for discussion of all questions related to adult literacy work in Canada: http://www.literacyjournal.ca/readers.html<BR/><BR/>Respectfully,<BR/>Tannis Atkinson<BR/>Editor, Literaciesliteracies editorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01727254011090073380noreply@blogger.com