Adult literacy in the United States is a contested field, lacking a working consensus on the definition and purpose of adult literacy education. Demetrion's volume contributes to the field by presenting a historical overview of adult literacy from the mid-1980s to the present and by addressing the most hotly debated issues. These include the nature of adult literacy education, pedagogical practices, and assessment and accountability. Recognizing the importance of a coherent philosophical approach to adult literacy, this volume also proposes a mediating theoretical framework for the field.
The first eight chapters give a descriptive analysis of the field, beginning with a discussion of three conflicting paradigms in adult literacy education: workforce-oriented functional literacy, Freirian-inspired critical literacy, and new literacy studies. Demetrion further analyzes pedagogical emphasis, assessment designs, and the different political beliefs of each paradigm as the underlying cause of fragmentation in the field.
With this foundation laid in the first two chapters, chapters 3–8 explore the links between federal policy and adult literacy. Chapter 3 discusses the changing political culture since the late 1980s. Facing the challenges of globalization, postindustrialization, and a failing educational system as addressed in the report A Nation at Risk (NCE, 1983), the national educational goal panel highlighted the importance of functional and workplace literacy, as explicated in three policy reports (Chisman, 1989; Johnston & Packer, 1987; SCANS, 1991). Such conservative calls were continued throughout the Senior Bush administration, as recounted in chapter 4. In contrast to the National Literacy Act's advocacy for a broad notion of adult literacy as both knowledge acquisition and personal growth, the conservative policy sector insisted on a workforce focus for adult basic education and the allocation of funding for employment preparation. To ensure an increase in literacy levels, an outcome-based national reporting system (NRS) was developed. The field's responses to this system are reviewed in chapter 5 and possible ways to work within this new system are discussed. Demetrion also presents methodological, political, and pedagogical critiques of this system, such as its neglect of the context for learning and assessment.
Chapter 6 further discusses the field's different perceptions about the nature and purposes of adult literacy, as reflected in the debates on the content, performance, and opportunity-to-learn standards. Demetrion dwells on the issue of outcome measurement and validity in relation to recent debates. He agrees with Merrifield (1998) that open, public dialogues among policy-makers, researchers, and practitioners might be one way to achieve a common set of standards.
Chapters 7 and 8 shift the discussion to the efforts of the equipped for the future (EFF) project, which aims at a national consensus on adult literacy pedagogy and policy. Built upon a constructivist framework, EFF understands learning as an interaction between learners and environments, and as both a quest for and a creation of knowledge. Articulating standards for common activities, generative skills, and knowledge domains, EFF tries to bridge the complex realities of adult literacy with the national educational goal. In the discussion of possible collaboration between EFF and NRS, Demetrion points out the unresolved tensions between “the policy goals of EFF and the pedagogical and epistemological assumptions of its constructivist premises” (p. 200); moreover, he acknowledges a need to build a coherent public philosophy grounded in American values.
In chapter 9, Demetrion revisits the conflicting paradigms (critical, functional, and new literacy studies) through Mertens' (1998) three categories of research: ontology, epistemology, and methodology. Demetrion argues that these paradigms parallel three different domains of research methodology: (a) critical social analysis, (b) scientific and evidence-based positivist/neo-positivist research, and (c) qualitative ethnographic and case study research. A national consensus on adult literacy, therefore, requires a reconciliation of ontological, epistemological, and methodological conflicts. An ambitious theoretical framework is proposed by Demetrion in the last two chapters in order to achieve such reconciliation.
This volume is an asset to the field. Its comprehensive description of policy and practice, together with an in-depth discussion of theories and research traditions, should make this volume a useful reference for policy-makers, practitioners, and researchers. Drawing from an impressive array of resources such as scholarship, government reports, and even electronic discussion forums, Demetrion provides resources for readers who are interested in American educational systems and reforms. Moreover, this synthesis of the purpose, nature, and value of adult literacy should inform other research areas that involve adult learners, including applied linguistics and second language writing, especially in this era of standardization and accountability.
