In Paulo Friere's "The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom" (1970) he suggests the idea that illiteracy is a form of cultural oppression (a rather risky assertion in 1970's Brazil). To me, this makes perfect sense, since adult literacy rates (and all forms of education, for that matter) almost always follow class lines. It's interesting, too, to read his examples taken from the state-sanctioned reading programs of Third World countries, which sound like not-so-subtle indoctrination more than anything else: "Peter is smiling. He is a happy man. He already has a good job. Everyone ought to follow his example." Some of it sounded frighteningly similar to Orwellian "double-speak."
I also found it interesting how very Marxist his perspective is. To think of educating the workers of the world as akin to empowering them is pretty much directly from the Communist Manifesto. The quotes from the workers about how they feel like they have something to say now that they can read and write were pretty telling; it’s no wonder Friere’s programs were not popular with the “powers that be” in Latin America. As soon as the weapon (a.k.a. the language) that is used against the poor is taken up by them in defense, the oppressors lose much of their power over the oppressed.
I had a serious “a-ha” moment when I got his notion that “marginalization” is not the right metaphor for the disempowered members of a society, since they are necessarily within that society in order to be oppressed by it. Therefore, empowerment is not about bringing them back from the margins, but rather about teaching them the mechanisms that hold them down (or the rules of the “culture of power,” as Delpit puts it).
I had never thought about literacy as a weapon of power before, but it makes a lot of sense to me now. Even in the First World, most of these issues ring alarmingly true.
References:
Friere, P. (1998). The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom. Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 480-498.
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