worth of funding was made available and since 2001 it is claimed that over 200,000 learners have been helped (
See report on adult literacies here).
Literacies not literacy: the theoretical context In policy terms, Scottish devolution created the unusual situation of a “clean slate” for adult literacy. At the same time, the need for policy could not be ignored because, like the rest of the UK, the Scottish results in the 1996 OECD sponsored International Adult Literacy surveys (IALs), painted a picture of the country lagging seriously behind the required skills levels for a knowledge economy. In terms of the 3-dimensional literacy ladder used in the surveys - prose reading skills, document skills to read timetables etc, and quantitative or arithmetic skills, over 5-graded levels of attainment ranging from 1 (very low level of skills) to 4 and 5 (higher literacy skills) were measured. The result was shocking. Based on a small Scottish sample of only around 700 respondents it was then claimed that around quarter of the population had serious literacy problems which were dysfunctional for a knowledge society (OECD, 2000). However, in a subsequent survey sponsored by the Scottish Government in 2007, which broadly replicated the IALs approach, this figure was scaled down to 3.6% of the population (St Clair et al, 2010).
Whatever the surveys were measuring, the result from the first one was to galvanise political and policy interest in adult literacy from the new Scottish political institution. In this context experienced practitioners helped to shape policy development as part of a national literacy task force: one result of this is the expansive view of adult literacies, published in the flagship policy document of 2001, Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland (ALNIS). The definition of adult literacy it promoted is:
The ability to read, write and use numeracy, to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners. (Scottish Executive, 2001:7)
This broad definition has to be interpreted through an emphasis on the relevance of purpose and context in how people use literacy. Rather than start from formal and abstract approaches to literacy, the stress is on the informal and vernacular character of literacies rather than these being devalued as “corrupt” or degenerate deviations of schooled literacy. To start from how people use literacies in everyday life, and the purposes they use them for, means beginning from what people know and do rather than what they cannot do or lack motivation to do. From this perspective, variation rather than standardisation in literacies is normal and the potential transfer of learning from different contexts means a broader range of activities and purposes are educationally legitimated.
The approach to a social practice model was expressed in the national Curriculum Framework for Literacy and Numeracy, which states that:
We are using a social practices account of adult literacy and numeracy. Rather than seeing literacy and numeracy as the decontextualised, mechanical, manipulation of letters and numbers, words and figures, this view shows that literacy and numeracy are located within social, emotional and linguistic contexts (Scottish Executive, 2005:3)
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