Society expects certain levels of literacy from its citizens. In addition, individuals have expectations for their own levels of literacy. In defining functional literacy, there is considerable disagreement over what can be expected of consumers, employees, and taxpayers. Empirical studies in Sweden attempting to establish criteria of functional literacy and to assess the degree to which school leavers and adults have achieved functional literacy have shown that if adults achieve a certain level in school, their level of literacy tends to increase and that adults tend to do much better on real-life tests than on school-type tests. These studies also indicated that even among educators there is little agreement as to what is a satisfactory level of literacy. Societal demands and expectations seem much higher than the level of performance of a majority of adults, making it important to develop reasonable standards of functional literacy. (TJ)