EMPLOYMENT AND LITERACY

Discussions of employment and literacy are dominated by the ideas of human capital, and related assumptions and thinking. The term human capital tries to capture the idea that a nation's economic well–being is intricately tied to the abilities and capabilities of its workforce. Subsequently, education and literacy has become a key way to enhance workers' abilities. "Human capital is enhanced through increased literacy functioning of individuals; therefore, literacy serves as an occupational skill" (Blunt, 2001, p. 90). In this view of literacy, one that Blunt labels a "technical–rational view", literacy skills are those which lead to increased production and greater returns. Literacy, then, becomes a set of occupational or employability skills that include not only basic skills in reading, writing and math, but have been expanded to include such skills as technology, critical thinking, and lifelong learning.

Contrasting the technical–rational view of literacy is an emancipatory view, in which literacy is viewed to be "essential to social development, the maintenance of democratic institutions and the achievement of social equity and justice" (p. 89). Where the technical–rational view talks of essential skills and measures employment and literacy issues with numbers and more quantitative tools, the emancipatory view speaks of empowerment, self–confidence, and change, relying more on qualitative and often ethnographic measures of success. "Basic literacy skills by themselves are simply not enough. What is needed are the social skills as well, and if not explicitly taught or addressed, their lack will cause the best intended initiatives of policy to founder" (Falk, p. 13). Social capital is a term that is used to counter the focus on human capital, and is "concerned with restructuring identities so people can see themselves as learners, and in roles that they previously were unprepared to undertake" (p. 12). The following examples will highlight these two very different views of literacy and its relationship to employment.

In a statistical study that used data from the 1994 IALS, Kapsalis (1998) found that literacy skills were a strong predictor of employability amongst adults who received social assistance. He found that annual earnings' levels were correlated more with literacy level than education level. Social assistance recipients had lower levels of education and literacy than non- social assistance recipients. In addition, social assistance recipients had lower literacy levels than non–social assistance recipients, even though both groups had the same level of education. Finally, higher literacy levels were associated with work that required daily literacy activities. He also suggested that social assistance recipients who were working were more likely to engage in literacy activities at home than those who were not. The study concluded that there may be a "virtuous cycle between work and literacy, whereby higher literacy leads to more employment, while more employment improves literacy skills" (p. 2).