This Data Point summarizes trends in adult literacy and numeracy skills since the 1990s for the United States and for those countries that participated with the United States in all three international adult literacy studies over the past three decades: Canada, Hungary, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Results in this Data Point…

Globally, literacy can be conceived of in different ways. Two perspectives that have influenced adult literacy policy internationally are the economic functionalist and the sociocultural. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Maori educators have repeatedly advanced a matauranga Maori perspective of literacy. This perspective has parallels with the embodied,…

This report explores the links between trade unions and workplace training, and the potential benefits of social partnership in the skills system. The UK is relatively unusual in having no formal role for trade unions in the training system. In most advanced economies, trade unions and employers work alongside government in shaping the skills…

Literacy holds very little positive meaning or experience for Maori and indigenous peoples. It has, instead, played a significant role in the breakdown of rich and cherished ancestral ways of life. This has resulted in a general, intergenerational resistance to literacy participation among adult Maori. Research findings reveal the nexus between…

Many Western governments are looking to workplace literacy, language, and numeracy programs to address general skill improvement with a longterm aim of improving labor productivity. Rigorous research on these programs' effectiveness for both of these agendas, however, remains sparse and limited in scope. This article reports the findings of an…

This article discusses the results of funded research that investigated how an industry training organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand embeds literacy in the workplace. Results confirm a "common-sense view" that there is not one right way to embed workplace literacy. They also reveal a number of findings about what works effectively when…

This paper examines tensions between adult literacy policy in Aotearoa New Zealand and the philosophies and mission of one post-school institution, a Wananga, an institution focused on the education of Maori, Aotearoa New Zealand's indigenous people. It uses policy documents, interview data and complexity thinking to explore the tensions created…

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments related to the development of indicators of educational progress in the context of the Post 2015 deliberations to generate a new international architecture for educational investment through to 2030. There have been a plethora of suggestions and several parallel consultation processes…

This report was produced for the 2012 Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting in Mauritius. Its main purpose is to track the historical progress and likelihood of attainment of Education For All and education-specific Millennium Development Goals while also critically reviewing the methods used to track this progress. The analyses…

This article presents a review of seven national governments' online collections of adult literacy-related research. This study explored the type of learning associated with official web spaces by asking the following research questions: (1) What kind of research do these governments present on their websites? (2) How is the presentation…

This study began in the Spring of 2003, when the Canterbury Adult Basic Education Research Network (CABERN), an informal cross-sector network of local adult literacy researchers and practitioners, sent out a questionnaire. The questionnaire addressed potential respondents by asking: "Are you a tutor engaged in any aspect of adult…

This document summarizes an extensive study of policies and practices in adult literacy and adult basic education in a number of countries undertaken by Rosa McKenna and Lynne Fitzpatrick. The original study contains considerably greater detail and analyses issues on a country-by-country basis. The countries studied--Canada, the Republic of…

The aim of this report was to analyze, through a desktop audit, international trends in adult literacy policy and programs. The audit includes an examination of the significant research undertaken, and policy statements made by international institutions such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the…

Five Cambodian mothers (whose primary grade children attended a regular New Zealand school) were introduced to a Shared Reading procedure to help them learn to read, in parallel with their children. All children showed increased reading progress, as did three of the mothers. (Author/CB)

This report summarizes issues facing New Zealand's modern adult literacy movement and places it in the context of the rapidly changing skill demands of the 21st century. Part I introduces political, economic, and social issues facing New Zealand. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the issues and structures that create the current climate. Part II…