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Prinsloo, Mastin, and Mignonne Beier (editors) : The Social Uses of Literacy. Theory and Practice in Contemporary South Africa

(Bertsham: Sached Books, 1996) 0636027511

ISBN 0636027511

208 x 150 mm; pictorial wrappers; pp. (viii) + 279, incl. index; photographs and diagrams. Ex-library copy. Wrappers a little rubbed; tape reinforcing to inner wraps.; portion cut from half-title; ink stamps to prelims., fore-edge and final blank. Good. "Using fascinating and carefully documented case-study material, this book raises vital questions about literacy and illiteracy, and about adult education. Above all, it questions the efficacy of any literacy programme which fails to acknowledge the many ways in which uneducated and so-called 'illiterate' people already use reading, writing and numeracy in their everyday lives. Through the case studies we are taken into the homes and workplaces of Black South Africans with little or no formal schooling, from farm workers to taxi drivers and factory workers to boarding school maids. Many of these people would be classed among South Africa's estimated 15 million illiterates; yet the case studies illustrate how they regularly use literacy in informal, unacknowledged ways at work, at home and in the community. ... The individual case studies' message is clear: People's varied and complicated experience, needs and aspirations need to be recognised and acknowledged through a range of different kinds of literacy and educational provision which is sensitive to local factors." - Janet Maybin, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

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