Summary and Analysis

The evidence offered in the present chapter suggests that lack of literacy or job skills is not a primary cause of poverty in Canada, either in a long range or in a short range sense. While it is true that the poor have lower attainments of education and training, this fact cannot explain their economic plight.

The liberal perspective is only able to sustain its notion of a causal role for illiteracy in poverty through a peculiar sort of theoretical "sleight of hand", in which the inner workings of the capitalist economy disappear from view. For example, an important set of economic actors, the capitalist class, vanish, and their actions and decisions in the unbridled pursuit of profit show up only as part of what is represented as an unproblematic background assumption: the inevitable advance of technology. Once the capitalist economy and the uneven and exploitative manner of its operation are implicitly ruled out of bounds to critical analysis in this way, the only alternative means of establishing causation for the problem of poverty is to focus on the real and presumed deficiencies of the poor--particularly their low level of attainment of education and job skills.

Secondary Factor

In contrast, those adhering to the critical perspective express an alternative, more accurate conception--calling illiteracy a "reflection". 57 "symptom"58 or "stigma"59 of poverty. What these terms express is the view that illiteracy is secondary to, and to a large degree derived from, the dynamics of class inequality, and does not possess an independent causal significance. Serge Wagner refers to illiteracy as:

one of the symptoms of a society in which the distribution of wealth is unfair, or, to paraphrase Archbishop Header Camara, of Brazil, the affluence of some is based on the poverty of others .... 60

At the same time, adherents of the critical perspective recognize that illiteracy helps to reinforce inequality to some degree. For example, Belanger refers to illiteracy as a factor helping to. "Maintain" -the "structures of inequality".61 That is, lack of literacy skills is one grounds for the disqualification of adults from higher paying and more. secure jobs. However, it is not seen as a primary basis. The concept of reinforcement is much weaker than that of causation, suggesting that educational inequality is a dependent phenomenon, itself produced by uneven economic development, but in turn mediating it, i.e. shaping its impact on the labour force

Strange Premise

We saw in an earlier chapter that the liberal perspective holds that a "remediation" strategy can break what is seen as a "vicious circle" of poverty. It is believed that when the productivities of the poor are raised through education and training, their employment and income prospects will also be improved. With an 'uplift' in their material circumstances, and with 'life skills' training, they can be expected to leave the poverty subculture and join the occupational and cultural mainstream. Thus, the incidence of poverty and unemployment can be expected to decline.