No abstract

When Germany performed the first national assessment on reading and writing skills among adults in 2010 (LEO), it was late compared to other European countries such as England or France. Now the results of the second round of that survey reveal a higher average literacy level in Germany compared to the preceding survey. In this paper, we briefly discuss the state of literacy research in large-scale surveys and offer some critical viewpoints. Next, we present the results of the two LEO surveys from 2010 and 2018. Besides providing information about the composition of the low-literate adult population in Germany (aged 18-64 years), we selected results that might help to critically revise current stereotypes about adults who have difficulties reading and writing.

Integration is more than work and school: It consists of socio-political participation as well. Even without citizen’s rights, migrants have an opinion on whether they ‘have a say’ in the host or dominant society. This expression – having a say – is emblematic, because it is a well-known survey question, also used in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). For this article, the authors choose Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel and the USA to analyse variables on political efficacy and volunteering as indicators for socio-political participation. Using post-colonial and multiple literacy approaches, the authors examine whether migrants and language minorities feel heard. Findings show that first-generation migrants in four countries feel low political efficacy and are excluded from volunteering. However, when taking literacy proficiency into consideration, many effects for political efficacy disappear. For large language minorities, however, controlling for literacy has no effect on their socio-political exclusion.

In contrast to qualitative and theoretical approaches, the mainstream of quantitative research often still finds it difficult to incorporate modern concepts of diversity and intersectionality into its work. This article aims to highlight various aspects in which large studies and their evaluations marginalise or ignore certain parts of the population. In surveying data, large-scale surveys like the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) often not only operate on a binary gender concept but also do not differentiate between a person gender identity and their social gender. In addition, commonly used methods keep unequal distributions invisible. Nonbinary people are virtually invisible, unequal benefits for women remain hidden and the intersectional diversity inside the broad gender categories poses challenges to the mainstream of quantitative research in adult education. Therefore, there is a need for a feminist approach to statistical methods and quantitative research and in particular a feminist approach to a careful and critical interpretation.

International large-scale assessments like the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) assess literacy and numeracy proficiency as abstract competences, assuming they are cognitive skills and therefore objectively and universally measurable. However, research into how people’s lives are affected by notions of literacy and numeracy has shown that both are influenced by social conventions and expectations which are embedded in power relations and ideology. Competences and practices are situated in their social context, and they are products of historical processes which include their construction through the way they are referred to by both experts and the general public. The purpose of this article is to look at literacy and numeracy from a post-structural point of view, questioning the individualised understanding of literacy and numeracy as abstract competences which people simply “have”. The author explores the possibility of viewing these basic competences as constructed through how they are actively performed (e.g. when someone engages in reading, writing or calculating for a particular purpose in a particular context) and referred to (e.g. when someone is pronounced “literate” or “competent”). The author points out that being acknowledged and addressed as competent and literate opens up possibilities, just as being viewed as lacking these competences can allow access to (learning) opportunities. Simultaneously and ambivalently, constructed notions of competence both liberate and subordinate individuals. They create power relations and vulnerabilities which often remain unacknowledged.