This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment…

Drawing on interviews we explore the centrality of belonging to rural places, embedded within time, in shaping life as a male reader, regardless of country of origin, or generation. Place theory explored the assemblages of spaces important for 6 boys (10-11 year-olds) from Australia and 6 men (25 year-olds and 60 year-olds) from Sweden in their…

This article focuses on low-performing adult readers in the Scandinavian countries, seeking to identify and describe some of the literacy-related problems that they face. Following a presentation of the Reading Components Assessment (RCA) used in PIAAC (Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies), we provide profiles for those…

It is well-known that there are large disparities in academic achievement between children of different socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. This study examines the evolution of disparities in literacy skills between adults of different SES backgrounds. It compares countries' patterns in the evolution of disparities in literacy by SES…

Numeracy and literacy skills have become increasingly important in modern labour markets. The large gender differences that several studies have identified have therefore sparked considerable attention among researchers and policy makers. Little is known about the moment in which such gaps emerge, how they evolve and if their evolution differs…

The Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will establish technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the survey design and implementation processes of PIAAC yield high-quality and internationally comparable data. This document provides a revised version of the technical standards and guidelines originally…

The purposes of this study are to assess Swedish adults' reading and writing skills so that they can be compared with the corresponding skills of students in the comprehensive and upper secondary schools, and to investigate the extent to which adults' reading and writing activities can be described as satisfactory to their needs. The subjects of…

This study investigated various reading and writing abilities among 25- and 35-year-old residents of Linkoping, Sweden, and assessed the extent to which these individuals' abilities could be regarded as satisfactory for their needs. In all, 377 subjects were tested on the following skills: alphabet recognition, copying ability, reading rate,…