Development must offer people not only release from poverty but also social esteem and political freedom. While knowledge production has exploded, its distribution and use is still limited, especially in the Third World. Literacy is the most promising means of bringing information and technology to common people in developing nations. Each country…

A two-pronged theory underlying literacy campaigns suggests that (1) the prevailing ideology of a society will determine the objectives of the literacy campaign as well as the language of justification used by the development elite in the promotion of adult literacy; and (2) the ideology, as expressed in the political culture of a society, will…