The effects of the literacy policy environment on local sites of learning

Abstract

This paper considers the policy environment of adult literacy as a space within which sites of learning are shaped and given value. It explores the interplay between international, national and local visions of what literacy is, who literacy learners are and what counts as learning, thereby linking broader social formations with local practices of literacy learning. The paper briefly reviews changes in UK policy related to adult literacy over the last 40 years, identifying some of the international and national influences on it. In particular, it describes the rising importance of international policy indicators through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union. These reach into the very heart of sites of learning, via the national media, policy documents and performance indicators used to evaluate both teachers and learners. It argues that the human resources view of literacy learning that has dominated recent policy initiatives produces a moral order of literacy which organises our understanding of different sites of learning, the people active within them and the different forms of learning in which they engage. Formal learning is privileged over informal learning; standardised and measurable outcomes are preferred. The ‘good’ literacy learner is constructed as a responsible citizen contributing to global prosperity.