Literacy in American Lives
Literacy in American Lives
Literacy in American Lives traces the changing conditions of literacy learning over the past century as they were felt in the lives of ordinary Americans born between 1895 and 1985. The book demonstrates what sharply rising standards for literacy have meant to successive generations of Americans and how--as students, workers, parents, and citizens--they have responded to rapid changes in the meaning and methods of literacy learning in their society. Drawing on more than 80 life histories of Americans from all walks of life, the book addresses critical questions facing public education at the start of the twenty-first century.
- Offers new insights into the effects of economic change on literacy learning
- One of the most comprehensive treatments of lifelong learning in America
- Uses life history methods and studies literacy across generations and across time
Reviews & endorsements
"Literacy in American Lives is a meaningful contribution to the field of literacy and an important and necessary read for students of literacy history, researchers and theoreticians, leaders in the literary associations, and legislative policy makers." Journal of Literacy Research
"In Literacy in American Lives, Deborah Brandt raises the bar for the sound understanding of literacy at the end of the millennium. She does this by embedding her understanding--and ours--in an impressive blend of interdisciplinary approach and perspective; historical and cultural contextualization; and humane passion for her subject, the individual lives whose narratives undergird and mediate her interpretation, and all of our hopes and needs for the 21st century. Her treatment is fresh and original. Professors and educators across disciplines and institutions should read Literacy in American Lives. But its combination of sane argument and methodological rigor on a topic where commentators can succumb to excess calls out to readers beyond the academy." Harvey J. Graff, University of Texas at San Antonio
"This book makes a significant contribution to literacy studies, and it deserves to be widely read. Brandt pushes us to reconsider many settled assumptions about how people learn to read and write, and she does it in lyrical prose that is a pleasure to read. I expect that we will be talking about and following the lead of her work for a long time." Rhetoric Review
Product details
May 2001Hardback
9780521783156
272 pages
229 × 152 × 19 mm
0.57kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction: the pursuit of liberty
- 1. Literacy, opportunity and economic change
- 2. Literacy and illiteracy in documentary America
- 3. Accumulating literacy: how four generations of one American family learned to write
- 4. 'The power of it': sponsors of literacy in African American lives
- 5. The sacred and the profane: reading vs. writing in popular memory
- 6. The means of production: literacy and stratification at the 21st century
- Conclusion.
