Ralf St.Clair
Texas A&M University, USA

Jennifer A. Sandlin
Texas Center for Adult Literacy and Learning, USA

Paper presented at SCUTREA, 32nd Annual Conference, 2-4 July 2002, University of Stirling

The idea of illiteracy has been around for a long time-some writers suggest at least as long as the 16^th century (Barton, 1994). During the five centuries of its existence it has served many uses, and continues to do so today. In this paper we provide an extremely brief review of the uses of illiteracy and show how the idea currently manifests in literacy policy in the United States. We argue that illiteracy is a key conceptual category in this form of policymaking, used to ascribe generalised incompetence to individuals. This incompetence is then seen to justify marginalisation and vilification of those considered illiterate and to underpin degrees of intrusion and surveillance otherwise unacceptable.

Throughout history, social policy discourse has consistently positioned the 'illiterate' as someone who not only lacks basic reading and writing skills, but also the personal characteristics of hard working, upstanding citizens - morals, a work ethic, and self-control. 'Illiteracy' itself has been described as an insidious disease - something to be combated and eradicated. It has been cited as the cause of a multitude of social and economic problems, including welfare dependency, unemployment, and the erosion of 'family values,' as well as real or perceived 'crises' in social, economic, or political arenas (Gee, 1996; Gowen, 1992; Quigley, 1997).

In the North American context nineteenth-century discourses linking illiteracy with immorality and a state of sin extended the European churches' ancient concern with literacy (Graff, 1995). The influx of immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s raised new concerns in popular rhetoric about domesticating a '"barbarous" population, whose inclinations towards "materialism" and "ignorance" threatened cultural continuity, political order, and Protestant morality' (deCastell & Luke, 1988: 162). Bills were proposed and passed in Congress in 1896, 1909, and 1915 (and then vetoed by incumbent presidents) that would have refused immigration to anyone who could not read or write in any language (Quigley, 1997). These 'illiterates', with their 'ignorance, superstition, shiftlessness, vulgarity and vice' (Mayo, cited in Quigley, 1997: 78) were seen as a threat to the 'American Way'.

Illiteracy was also used as a justification for denying certain groups social and civic rights while these same groups were also denied the opportunity to become literate. Throughout the period of slavery in the United States, literacy education was denied to slaves as part of state, regional, and plantation policies 'for the suppression and control of an "inferior race"' (Quigley, 1997: 75). One legacy of these policies of 'forced illiteracy' was that even after African Americans were officially given the right to vote in 1870, they were effectively banned from doing so by the implementation of literacy tests.

Beginning in the mid twentieth century, illiteracy began to be perceived as a threat to national economic productivity, a perception that continues today. In the 1940s and 50s, illiteracy was decried as a hindrance to economic growth, foreshadowing literacy education's explicit link to workforce education several decades later. In the second half of the twentieth century, illiteracy quickly became the new scapegoat for rising unemployment, welfare dependency, and a host of other national economic problems. Policy makers warned that national productivity and the ability to compete in the global market would also be at risk if illiteracy continued to exist in society. Quigley (1990: 212) states that the history of social policy has presented

an historic leitmotif of illiteracy as more than a national issue which is linked to national crises. It is historically called up as a spectre of hidden, devious, forces which is working against the good efforts of real Americans and, in its personification, illiteracy has helped create and sustain the nation's problems.

The use of the term throughout history suggests strongly that illiteracy is not a measure but a metaphor. It has been used over the last several hundred years as a synonym for 'Immoral,' 'African-American,' 'Female,' 'Stupid,' 'Poor,' and 'Lazy,' among other terms. Reversing the meaning of 'literacy' is a useful way to begin to understand 'illiteracy,' but the full meaning requires consideration of the role it performs as a coded reference in its own right. This is a complex undertaking, as while all agree that illiteracy has something to do with reading and writing on some level, the implications of this connection are remarkably different depending on stance. Throughout the rest of this paper, we attempt to expose a few of the layers of the metaphor of illiteracy as they relate to the role of the individual as the subject of state policy.

The notion that to be illiterate is to be in some way excluded from mainstream society remains powerful. This notion is supported by both the political Left and the Right, and even their reasons for supporting it differ only subtly. A good example of the conservative approach can be found in 'Cultural Literacy' , an attempt to lay out all the things the 'literate American' should know about. Whilst the idea of a common stock of knowledge for all irrespective of ethnicity, wealth, gender, sexual orientation, and other dimensions may be attractive on some levels, it ultimately works to obscure the existence and importance of diversity within society. However it is worth examining the rationale Hirsch (1986: 12) puts forward for his scheme, the

basic principle that underlies our national system of education in the first place-that people in a democracy can be entrusted to decide all important matters for themselves because they can deliberate and communicate with one another.

The progressive approach of Freire offers an equally weighty understanding of literacy and illiteracy. One of his most important arguments was that literacy education 'becomes a vehicle by which the oppressed are equipped with the necessary tools to reappropriate their history, culture, and language practices (Freire & Macedo, 1987: 157). In other words overcoming systemic alienation requires the adult learner to overcome alienation from the language.

While Hirsch and Freire would disagree profoundly on what literacy looks like, they would have common ground in regarding illiteracy as a lesser state of existence which leaves the individual outside the democratic conversation. This shared orientation regarding the importance of literacy as a knowledge and a practice can be found throughout the political spectrum-it is difficult indeed to find anybody advocating in favour of illiteracy. The metaphor of illiteracy retains its power to signal a condition of marginalisation from the mainstream despite wide variety in its application and diametrically opposed views of its significance.

The meaning attached to illiteracy continues to change, and there are two ways in which the metaphor of illiteracy has shifted significantly in the last twenty years. The first shift has been in the meaning of the term 'literacy,' which has both expanded to include media other than text, and been applied to children in school. Rather than a matter of adult reading and writing ability, literacy now becomes a concern about whether nine year olds can make meaning from art or music-not to mention the ubiquitous computer literacy. The shared understanding of illiteracy is, in this case, also transformed, from a struggle with a specific set of abilities to a more generalised form of incompetence. The illiterate person can be any age, and not only cannot read, but is totally cut off from informed use of any information medium.

The second shift in illiteracy has been the adoption of the measure contained within the National Adult Literacy Survey. Conducted in 1992, this large-scale survey analysed the distribution of three types of literacy in the US population. Attainment was divided into five levels of literacy function, with level 1 as the lowest. Level 2-3 is considered as the functional literacy level for a text based society. Between 45 and 50 % of the US population scored in level 1 or 2 on the survey and can be considered, by this measure, functionally illiterate . The notion of illiterate broadens once again, to mean not just those who have no knowledge of reading or writing, but those who are considered to have abilities below those deemed necessary.

The cumulative effect of these metaphorical transformations has been that while the term 'illiteracy' is no longer bandied about, the idea of illiteracy as a state of incompetence experienced by huge numbers of adults and rendering them incapable of essential engagement with information has become ever more pervasive. Illiteracy is still claimed to lead to unemployment, lost production, bad morals, disease, and poverty . Apparently it also leads to a crisis of participation, where apathy towards political process is underpinned by apathy towards the information streams that lubricate the wheels of democracy. Though the term itself is no longer as acceptable as it once was, we believe it is useful to retain it as an analytical concept-as we shall show, the metaphorical uses of 'illiteracy' outlive the term itself.

The broadening of the illiteracy metaphor has supported many equally broadened interventions in the lives of those deemed to be illiterate. A good example of this effect is Even Start provision in the US, a federally funded family literacy program providing states with $250 million in budget year 2002. Examining the details of this programming demonstrates how learners are assumed to suffer from generalised incompetence almost entirely on the basis of their engagement with information media. If the individual does not meet the ordained standard of reading and writing in English, they are assumed to be bad parents, unemployable, and of little economic or moral worth.

In order to understand the state's use of the illiteracy metaphor in family literacy it is important to review the political context for state action during the last few years. The crisis of the role of the state in late modernism has been noted by many authors over the last thirty years . In the United States one of the most significant manifestations of this crisis has been the advancement of two contradictory ends-small government and effective intervention. Small government means lower taxes and less legislation, especially around business, and the idea has had some effect. During the 1990s the lowest paid 95% of the population (which includes the crucial middle classes) did end up paying less tax, albeit because the soaring incomes of the richest 5% resulted in them paying more . The White House claims that when President Bush's latest tax cuts are fully implemented over 100 million individuals and families will pay less tax . The small government ideal does not necessarily result in emaciated state apparati, but it does create pressure for government to appear to be reducing its fiscal and legislative reach.

The other goal of government has been effective intervention, with high degrees of accountability being introduced in law enforcement, education, health, and welfare systems. Taxpayers and legislatures want to know that programs will achieve their goals, which tends to lead to extremely simplified statements of objectives set up so that they can, indeed, be achieved. It also fits well with conservative agenda items such as the radical restructuring of the welfare system, which can be presented as a move towards efficiency rather than an attack on a vital safety net for the poor .

The two goals-of small government and effectiveness-are to a large extent contradictory. It is difficult to conceive of a program really changing the social experience of a large number of people without having the resources to do so. Changing a whole country is not cheap. Yet the administration is not particularly concerned about this disjuncture, claiming that:

The President's budget plan is shaped around a clearly defined goal-the conviction that Government should play a role that is both activist and limited. The Government has an important role to play in fostering an environment in which all Americans have the opportunity to better themselves and their families . . .

As observers of the US politic, we have come to believe that the key to making policy with contradictory aims credible is careful management of key metaphors, of which illiteracy is one. The importance attached to literacy/illiteracy at the federal level is well illustrated in the hyperbole attached to reauthorisation of the funding for Even Start:

. . . the federal Even Start family literacy program is helping parents reduce their dependence on public assistance, obtain employment, and advance in their current jobs.  This in turn, allows parents to become a part of their children's education and helps children to become better students.  I am convinced that literacy is the key to ending the cycle of poverty . . .

If literacy is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty, then illiteracy is clearly the most significant factor making people poor. This is overtly stated in the wording of the bill allocating funds for Evenstart, which claims 'it is the purpose of this part to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy by improving the educational opportunities of the Nation's low-income families' . Within this arena it appears that illiteracy still has explicit power as a means to understand the links between educational and economic disadvantage.

The field of family literacy is based on the premise that parents (or other responsible adults, but it is usually stated as parents) have a critical role to play in ensuring children attain the literacy skills they need to be successful in society. It then follows that the parents themselves must also have a high degree of literacy in order to be able to teach the children. If parents are not fully engaged with literacy an appropriate response is to treat the whole family as a learning unit. This uncontroversial description of the perspective underlying family literacy provision already starts to demonstrate the power of illiteracy. The 'failure of literacy' in the parents has now expanded to become a signal of an illiterate family, and further indicates a general failure of parenting. Irrespective of any other behaviour or values, the parent who is not demonstrating literate acts cannot be a good parent.

Even Start programs tackle the deficit family through four components. The first two are early childhood education and adult education, which do seem a reasonable fit. Adults are able to leave their children with responsible, child-oriented people while studying for a GED or learning English. The other two components are parenting education and parent and child together time (PACT). The former seeks to teach adults how to act as parents while the latter is an activity lab where parents and children are encouraged to interact around practical or arts activities. Within these activities there is a clear assumption that the adults involved have no parenting strategies at all, or if they do, they are so faulty as to be useless. The implicit aim is to fill this gap with the parenting culture of the school and the middle class (Tett & St.Clair, 1997).

This attempt occurs not only in the Even Start setting, but also in the home environment. Even Start programs require a home visit, usually on a monthly basis, to ensure that parents are applying the lessons of the programme throughout their lives. The drive for accountability mentioned earlier has created a demand for an instrument to capture parenting skills and provide a means to demonstrate improvement. In many states the instrument of choice is the HOME inventory (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984), a remarkably culturally insensitive approach. For example, the observer is required to note whether the 'parent teaches the child some simple manners-to say 'please,' 'thank you,' and 'I'm sorry' (ibid.: 109). Other concerns include whether the 'mother uses correct grammar and pronunciation' (ibid.: 110) and that the 'mother spontaneously praises child's qualities or behaviour twice during the visit' (ibid.: 112). Even Start involves a remarkably high degree of intrusion by professionals into the domestic sphere.

In understanding the significance of this intervention it is important to remember that it is justified not by an observed failure to ensure the safety of the child, or even by a negative attitude towards schooling. It is entirely predicated upon the ascribed functional illiteracy of the adult member of the household in English. It makes little difference if the literacy issues arise because of problems with schooling or because the family is newly arrived in the US and uses another language to a high level. Illiteracy is rigidly attached to general incompetence in a stereotyping and unexamined way.

Even Start legislation sets out to serve the 'most in need' population. This is a key factor making the link between illiteracy and incompetence credible. The families involved in Even Start are poor, which in the US very often means African-American or Hispanic. White Americans, including the enormous middle classes, find it all too easy to believe that other groups are deficient in some way, and the structures of family literacy do nothing to challenge that belief. Rather than accepting, or even considering, that other cultural groups have their own values concerning parenting and literacy. Even Start begins from the premise of deficit and failure. The question is how this approach benefits the state supporting these programmes.

Even Start is a useful programme for the federal government. It uses the metaphor of illiteracy, with the complex of negative judgements it entails, to underpin a form of provision which combines the need for government to be doing something to support business (small government) and providing effective programmes (accountability). It supports business by claiming to fix the poor, providing an educated pool of potential employees and active consumers. It claims effectiveness by showing how much all the participants have learned, and how much less likely the children are to be a burden on the tax system compared to their parents. On a moral level, it is a relatively cheap programme able to intrude into the homes of hundreds of thousands of people in the US and change their fundamental values. Illiteracy serves the needs of many constituencies in Even Start provision.

Our argument is that illiteracy as a metaphor for moral and economic failure is alive and well in contemporary US educational policy. It justifies high levels of intrusion into the domestic lives of the poorest citizens and blames them for the conditions in which they find themselves. Illiteracy has come to metaphorically represent generalised incompetency, serving the interests of policy makers at federal and state levels. We remain dismayed that the subjects of such policy do not so easily find their interests represented.

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This document was added to the Education-line database on 18 March 2003