Adult Illiteracy and Social Justice in the United States

A person’s skill set translates to their job prospects. Those who have a greater number of developed skills that they can bring to the table at a new job will inherently have a greater number of job prospects and chances for advancement, while this with fewer developed skills will likely be stuck with fewer opportunities for work or advancement. Adult illiteracy is a major problem impeding the development of skills for those saddled with it, and often further disadvantages already disadvantaged people. Illiterate adults have a tremendously hard time improving their lives, as we can see from the clear correlation between adult illiteracy rates and poverty rates. Crime often follows closely behind the poverty that typically plagues illiterate adults; 70 percent of incarcerated individuals in the United States cannot read beyond a fourth grade level. One simply must be able to read in order to be a productive and useful member of society. Adult illiteracy is a matter not just of improving the lives of individuals, but of social justice on a national scale, and the problem must be addressed if the nation is to move toward equality for all its citizens.

Illiteracy is a deeply complex issue in the United States, and while there is cause for optimism on the issue, the challenges it presents are by no means well in control in contemporary society. While illiteracy in the United States is on the decline on the whole, the decline in illiteracy rates is perhaps slower than might be ideal (Acosta, 2014). Even though illiteracy rates are dropping over time, that decline is slower than is seen in other similarly developed nations in the world. The nation will have to implement a multi-pronged attack on illiteracy in its population if the illiteracy rates in the United States are to fall at commensurate rates with those of the rest of the post-industrialized world.

Schools are the forefront way that we can combat illiteracy, but school accessibility remains a problem for many disadvantaged and rural families, whose illiteracy rates tend to be much higher than their urban or affluent counterparts (Acosta, 2014). Stated simply, access to education is a major contributing factor in illiteracy, and people who live in rural areas tend to have a harder time accessing education reliably.

Similarly, the quality of education impacts the literacy rates in an area, and quality of education is often tied to the property taxes that the area is able to raise. Poor areas features properties with lesser values, and as such less revenue in property tax winds up funneled into the schools there. While there are some efforts to combat the generally poorer quality of education in poor communities, such as bussing students in and out of districts in order to ensure that a poor student is not inherently doomed to a poor education, the fact remains generally that poor students live in poor neighborhoods and receive poorer educations, leading to higher illiteracy rates than one might find on the rich side of town (Acosta, 2014). Here we see the way that illiteracy relates to social justice issues in society, as systemic disenfranchisement of disadvantaged communities like the African American community or communities of Hispanic immigrants winds up contributing to illiteracy rates among their numbers, which ultimately leads to poorer economic prospects throughout life, which further depresses their communities, ensuring that they are unable to catch up to affluent white America.

Rivera-Batiz (1992) studied literacy rates in the United states by employing a literacy test on a randomized selection of participants corrected for population representation. The study finds that 10.8 percent of Americans are illiterate, then further tracks the correlation between illiteracy and employment rates. Simply stated, adults who display high literacy rates are far more likely to be employed than their illiterate counterparts, who struggle by and large with far greater unemployment rates.

There is also a pronounced correlation between crime rates in areas where often-unemployed illiterate Americans can afford to live, demonstrating a positive correlation between regional crime rates and illiteracy. Crime and poverty tend to go hand in hand with one another, so it makes perfect sense—statistically speaking—that illiterate adults are both more likely to be victims of crime as well as to wind up committing crimes. To this end, higher crime rates inevitably lead to higher incarceration rates for illiterate Americans, again making illiteracy an issue of social justice. “More than three out of four of those on welfare, 85 percent of unwed mothers and 68 percent of those arrested are illiterate” (Robinson, 1996). Can a just society sit idly by and allow them to be illiterate if illiterate Americans are more likely to commit crimes and wind up losing their freedom?

There is also a demonstrable connection between illiteracy and the general ability to participate in society. American society is founded on our ability to participate in the democratic process, and there is an unsurprising link between participation in democracy and other civic activities and illiteracy (Brandt, 1997). Illiteracy is extremely alienating for those who experience it both socially and emotionally. Those who cannot read are automatically at a much greater disadvantage when it comes to interacting with the world around them, and as such they tend to be less inclined to engage civically than their literate peers. People who are illiterate have a much harder time sharing communal experiences associated with living in a larger society, and as such tend to hide their problem by simply not attempting to participate.

Illiterate adults vote at a much lower rate than literate adults, for instance, which depresses representation in government of the communities—typically poor communities—from which they come, which has the effect of contributing to the underrepresentation of disadvantaged Americans in the United States political system (Brandt, 1997). Because illiterate adults cannot read information for themselves, they are forced to get all their information from those who will report it to them, which means that they are often easily convinced of other people’s ideologies. In addition to participating in the nation’s political and social systems less often than literate adults, illiterate adults who do vote tend to vote the way those around them do, typically demonstrating a tendency to be swayed toward simpler explanations and ideologies, rather than being able to parse out the complex nuance inherent in American government.

Illiterates struggle with critical thinking issues related to problems that are not intuitive because they must rely on the explanations of biased third parties. As a result, illiterate adults are subject to being taken advantage of politically, as they can be more readily bowled over by those who claim to want the best for them without being able to investigate the particulars of politicians’ claims and philosophies (Brandt, 1997).

Illiterate adults widely report feeling deeply ashamed of being illiterate, which leads them to hide the fact that they can’t read however they’re able. Such people often do not make social connections as easily as people who can read, and tend to go after work and careers that will largely not expect much from them. Because illiterates do not want to be found out for being unable to read, they couch themselves in situations where reading is not a terribly vital skill for any given task, which severely limits their chances of landing a decent job and getting ahead in society.

Beyond this, though, illiterate adults battle depression at greater rates than literate adults, as their feelings of social isolation lead them to withdraw more from their peers than others who can read. Illiterate adults also struggle with anxiety at greater rates than literate adults, as they exist in a constant state of alertness for the possibility that they might be found out as being unable to read. Because emotional distresses like depression and anxiety affect physical health, illiteracy can effectively be seen as something of a public health issue, as it contributes to physical ailments that go hand in hand with emotional distress.

Part of why illiterate adults are so loath to out themselves as illiterate is because there is a tremendous and deleterious social stigma surrounding adults being unable to read. There is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding in society that illiterate adults are simply dumb, and Coles (1983) attempts to address the connection between overall intelligence and literacy rates in American adults. In studying this issue, Coles finds a number of factors that affect literacy rates in adults, and then breaks those out into their contributing sub-factors. Essentially, illiteracy is not nearly as simple as the idea that intelligence equates to literacy and unintelligence equates to illiteracy. Instead, the article finds that factors such as socioeconomic status and access to education are far more important predictors of illiteracy in adulthood, and that cognitive capacity does not seem correlated with illiteracy rates (Coles, 1983). Again, the issue of illiteracy seems to come back to issues related to socioeconimc status and prosperity, underscoring that illiteracy is deeply entangled with issues of social justice. Further, one of the biggest indicators or predictors of adult illiteracy is being raised in a home with illiterate adults. Depressed socioeconomic status produces conditions in which illiteracy is more likely to last into adulthood, and adult illiteracy is likely to reinforce depressed socioeconomic status, creating an ouroboros of economic and intellectual poverty.

The African American community is the hardest hit when it comes to adult illiteracy. McNaughton (1992) finds that there is a higher illiteracy rate in the African American community than there is in white American communities or in other ethnic groups, such as peoples of Latin or Asian descent in the United States. McNaughton draws a correlation between higher poverty rates and other socioeconomic factors that lead to general societal disadvantage, which remain as a consistent predictor of higher illiteracy rates across various studies done into the issue of adult illiteracy in the United States. Reinforcing the issues of unemployment correlating with illiteracy, the author also notes the higher rates of unemployment in the African American community, concluding that the disadvantaged circumstances in which members of the black community live translate to a general disenfranchisement from society and many of the advantages it presents to more affluent peoples (McNaughton, 1992). Being an already deeply disadvantaged community in the United States, it is of tremendous importance that adult illiteracy rates drop faster than they presently are if the nation is ever to arrive at more equitable treatment for African Americans.

Unfortunately, because there is no precise measurement of how many illiterate adults live among us, there is also no consensus on how to best reach those adults and teach them to read. As many as 38 millions adults in the United States may currently be illiterate, which is an unfathomably large number for such an affluent nation. “Funding for adult literacy became further justified in December when a new study by the federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) showed that 30 million Americans have inadequate literacy skills - with seven million of them ranked as nonliterate in English” (Hull, 2006). Illiterate adults are often—in some way or another—a burden on society, as they wind up in positions of needing to lean on social services more commonly than literate adults in addition to winding up in prison at greater rates. At the very least, illiterate adults maintain poorer economic prospects, which means their contributions to society by way of taxes paid are lower than their literate counterparts (Robinson, 1996). As such, society itself stands to benefit by getting these adults up to reading level.

In order to address the problem of adult illiteracy, the first thing the government needs to do is to deeply study the issue in terms of sheer number of adults presently illiterate, conditions that lead most commonly to illiteracy and warning signs as to those conditions, and what social and economic impact illiteracy has. If illiterate adults tend to participate less in politics and democracy, what impact will there be if these adults are brought up to reading level? What would happen to the job market with a sudden influx of new qualified laborers? What percentage of literate adults take advantage of programs like Medicare and Food Stamps versus illiterate adults? How much money could be saved in the long run if the country installed readily available programs to combat adult illiteracy? We need answers to all of these questions and countless more if we’re to solve adult illiteracy; we need to understand the problem in order to combat the problem.

Of course, illiteracy has its roots in childhood. Because illiteracy begins in childhood, the best chance we have as a society of addressing illiteracy is to attack it in childhood. Schools must be the frontier of combatting illiteracy in generations to come. Increased public school enrollment reflects the decline in illiteracy in the nation: “Total public and private elementary and secondary school enrollment was 55 million in fall 2011, representing a 4 percent increase since fall 1998” (Hussar & Baily, 2016). The Department of Education must come up with a plan for directly addressing the conditions that allow illiteracy to take hold in disadvantaged communities, focusing on early childhood education and development tactics in order to shore up healthy learning processes and goals. Beyond simply creating better reading programs as a part of school curriculum, there must also be supplemental programs aimed at identifying and specifically helping students who are having a harder time reading at a young age. Once such a program has been devised, the community must also be educated as to its availability to the young people there. As such, any program that supplements standard schooling must also bear a marketing component in order to spread awareness of it.

There need to be standardizations in place if any system of addressing illiteracy is to have any notable success. Luckily, Congress introduces the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in 2015, which lays some key groundwork for bringing illiterate adults up to reading level. “The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014 helps job seekers access education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor market and helps match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy” (Ladinsky, 2015). The program prescribes requirements for states as well as guidelines on how best to follow them, laying out monitoring and funding requirements in order to ensure that the guidelines can be met across the board. They key is coming to an agreed upon method of attack and implementing it nationwide. The legislation provides guidance for how to find, certify, and retain qualified instructors who have specialized in teaching illiterate adults to read, providing tax incentives to institutions that take on adult education courses aimed at eliminating adult illiteracy.

Adult illiteracy can be combatted significantly better today than it might have been a century ago, as technological innovations have made teaching people in rural areas or disadvantaged urban areas easier than ever before. “The increased availability of tablet technologies in many homes and early childhood educational settings has transformed play-time and the subsequent opportunities that emerge for literacy learning. What children do with the digital applications (apps) on these technologies demands our attention, particularly as we consider the ever-increasing market of apps marketed to enhance the basic literacy skills” (Kervin, 2016). Basically, distance education is getting better and better woven into the fabric of society, and tools for learning are far more abundant and easier to control for oneself than they used to be.

Illiterate adults have an easier time accessing learning materials conveniently and privately, which can help address the issue of adults presently illiterate. Similarly, such learning materials and technologies can be placed in the hands of children who demonstrate the warning signs for being at risk of illiteracy later in life, which will help solve the illiteracy problem in generations to come. Of course, such technological advances are more readily available to the affluent than the impoverished, so poorer Americans, who are more at risk for illiteracy, ought to have these advantages and tools subsidized for them at the federal level. While it may be uncomfortable to pay for such things with tax money in the short-term, the long-term advantage will be a better skilled workforce that is able to contribute more in tax dollars down the line.

Among so many other things, we can improve the ethical fabric of society by teaching reading skills. Ethical ideas and critical thinking skills are not innate—they can only be learned through education, and education is effectively impossible if one cannot read. Indeed, if illiterate adults tend to be more easily swayed by what those around them tell them, illiterate adults will necessarily be less inclined toward the critical thinking skills required to be a responsible member of society. By teaching our citizens to read at greater rates than we currently do, we will be able to create a society of better informed, more critical, and more empathetic individuals. Of course, that begs the question of whether we can hold those who cannot read and are not educated to the same ethical (and ultimately legal) standards as those who can read and are educated. While courts often hold that ignorance to the law is not grounds for defense, surely ignorance to the law at least affects the degree to which intent can reasonably be assessed against those who stand accused. By educating the population, we can head off many of these types of concerns while also creating a population of people better concerned with and equipped to do the right thing.

Adult illiteracy will not be easily bested in the United States. There are so many moving parts to the problem that it is hard to even understand how bad it is at present. We desperately need to fully understand the extent of the illiteracy problem in the United States—both in terms of those currently illiterate, as well as what myriad social impacts we tacitly endorse by leaving them to remains illiterate. Society will be better on the whole if we can successfully address adult illiteracy. By weaving early childhood education, standardized nationwide programs aimed at teaching illiterate adults, and technological innovations all together, the nation currently stands better equipped to address adult illiteracy than ever before. This is particularly important where it is concerned with the economically disadvantaged and members of disenfranchised ethnic groups, as these people are already vulnerable to so many different negative social consequences that arise from systemic discrimination. If this is truly to be a nation where all are created equal, we need to do everything in our power to ensure that everybody truly has equal opportunity.