Bryan Maddox

What can ethnographic studies tell us about the consequences of literacy

The ethnographic literature on literacy is marked by a characteristic divide between ‘ideological’ and ‘autonomous’ positions, the former being associated with the sociocultural approach adopted within the ‘New Literacy Studies’ (NLS) and the work of Brian Street, and the latter with the work of Jack Goody. The polarization between the approaches has led to certain themes associated with the work of Goody and his ‘literacy thesis’ being excluded from ethnographic writing and theory. Such themes included the attributes and consequences of literacy as a ‘technology’, and the association of literacy acquisition with social mobility and progressive forms of social change. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bangladesh and a review of the recent ethnographic literature from a range of cultural settings. It examines the case for a more inclusive and comparative approach based on the emergent ‘situated’ perspective. It suggests revisionist readings of ethnographic accounts recognizing cross‐cultural patterns of utility, and the significance of literacy for human agency, gender relations, and well‐being. Presenting an ethnographic case study of women’s literacy in N/W Bangladesh it draws out the theoretical significance of such a shift in how we research and understand the consequences of literacy acquisition. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications of such a perspective for adult literacy policy and practice.

Globalising assessment: an ethnography of literacy assessment, camels and fast food in the Mongolian Gobi

What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian respondents. The analysis of literacy assessment events is informed by Goodwins ‘participation framework’ on language as embodied and situated interactive phenomena and by Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied to examine literacy assessment events as processes of translation shaped by an ‘assemblage’ of human and non-human actors (including the assessment texts).

Sufficiency Re-examined: A Capabilities Perspective on the Assessment of Functional Adult Literacy

Abstract There is a growing consensus that the dichotomous categories of literate and illiterate should be abandoned. However, the dichotomy has considerable utility in the analysis of educational achievements and inequality in developing countries. Statistics on functional adult literacy are intended to tell us whether people have achieved a minimum level or threshold of functioning necessary for their daily life. We should therefore carefully consider the implications of such change.

The neglected situation: assessment performance and interaction in context

Informed by Goffman’s influential essay on ‘The neglected situation’ this paper examines the contextual and interactive dimensions of performance in large-scale educational assessments. The paper applies Goffman’s participation framework and associated theory in linguistic anthropology to examine how testing situations are framed and enacted as social occasions. It considers assessment as a shared focus of social activity, located in time and space, involving an assemblage of artefacts and actors. The paper presents ethnographic examples of adult literacy and numeracy assessment in Mongolia. The first part provides ethnographic description of a testing situation. The second part looks in detail at how linguistic interaction influences assessment performance.

Observing Testing Situations: Validation as Jazz

Observations of real-life testing situations can provide important insights into test validation and assessment response processes. We consider observations of face-to-face interaction as a starting point to investigate how variation in assessment performance is informed by the ecological characteristics of the testing situation. This perspective offers a contrast to conventional ‘think aloud’ protocols. Observations of real-life testing situations capture in-vivo perspectives on assessment interaction and performance as it occurs, rather than as if occurring in-vitro. Our aim is to deliberately capture and consider the “noisy” ecological characteristics in the testing situation (e.g., interaction, setting, affect) that may influence response processes, but that are not part of the trait under investigation. Observations of real-life testing situations reveal observable structures and patterns of behaviour, but every performance is somewhat different. Like jazz, the testing situation involves elements of improvisation. This is illustrated using transcripts from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC).

Marginal returns: re‐thinking mobility and educational benefit in contexts of chronic poverty

As a result of chronic poverty many people in South Asia experience poor quality schooling, interrupted schooling, or no schooling at all. People affected by poverty face multiple constraints on wellbeing, which typically include informal employment, low wages and poor health. In such contexts the benefits and, more specifically, the ‘returns’ to education are not easily observed. Standard measures of educational attainment (such as primary school completion, years of schooling, literacy rates) are ill‐suited to capture and understand such benefits. Similarly, data on income from formal employment is likely to be unsuitable. The paper argues that concepts of educational benefit and mobility have to be re‐thought in contexts of chronic poverty to capture the ‘marginal returns’ in situations of constraint and vulnerability. The paper illustrates this argument with ethnographic vignettes of uses of literacy by non‐schooled adults in Bangladesh.

Literacies, Identities and Social Change: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literacy and Development

The concept of literacy has an important role in theories of social and human development. The development studies literature has consistently described illiteracy as a pervasive characteristic of poverty and human vulnerability, and literacy as a necessary component in poverty reduction and wellbeing. Illiteracy, as Amartya Sen has argued, is a ‘focal feature’ of capability deprivation and social injustice (Sen, 1999: 103). This argument is supported by an extensive literature that observes a strong correlation between literacy and other determinants of wellbeing such as income, women’s labour-force participation and health (Sen, 1999). The perceived importance of literacy in human development is illustrated by the central position of adult literacy rates in the Human Development Index and in wider measures of wellbeing. Despite this, there are a number of unresolved problems in the field of literacy studies. While literacy has an important evaluative position in theories of development, there is no ‘theory of literacy’ that can adequately capture and predict its complex role in processes of social change, account for the role of literate (and illiterate) identities and practices in shaping social relations, capacities and aspirations. Such an understanding is, however, required if we are to make sense of the pervasive role of literacy in globalised material, institutional and bureaucratic cultures (Riles, 2006), in conceptions of schooling and citizenship, and in the analysis of inequality. This collection of papers attempts to develop new understandings of the relationship between literacy, identities and social change through a process of inter-disciplinary dialogue. This locates the study of literacy beyond individual attributes, at the nexus of institutional and material practices and textual cultures, instrumentality, and the production of agency and identity. Drawing on both differences, and shared understandings of literacy and development in economics and anthropology, we build on what Jackson (2002) describes as the ‘creative tensions’ of interdisciplinary research. Disciplinary traditions in literacy research have largely developed in isolation. There are radical epistemological and theoretical differences in the way that economists and anthropologists view literacy and its relationship with the wider aspects of development and human welfare. Tensions over ‘validity criteria’ and enumeration (Kanbur and Shaffer, 2007), contextual specificity and comparison, thick descriptions and thin generalities are not atypical Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 44, No. 6, 769–778, July 2008

An Anthropologist Among the Psychometricians: Assessment Events, Ethnography, and Differential Item Functioning in the Mongolian Gobi

This article explores the potential for ethnographic observations to inform the analysis of test item performance. In 2010, a standardized, large-scale adult literacy assessment took place in Mongolia as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP). In a novel form of interdisciplinary collaboration, an ethnographer worked closely with psychometric researchers to investigate the sources and explanations of differential item functioning and test item performance. The research involved detailed ethnographic observations of literacy assessment events. The results illustrate the potential for ethnography to provide insights into testing situations, group and test item performance, and to combine with psychometric analysis in cross-cultural assessment.

The value of literacy practices

The concepts of literacy events and practices have received considerable attention in educational research and policy. In comparison, the question of value, that is, ‘which literacy practices do people most value?’ has been neglected. With the current trend of cross-cultural adult literacy assessment, it is increasingly important to recognise locally valued literacy practices. In this paper we argue that measuring preferences and weighting of literacy practices provides an empirical and democratic basis for decisions in literacy assessment and curriculum development and could inform rapid educational adaptation to changes in the literacy environment. The paper examines the methodological basis for investigating literacy values and its potential to inform cross-cultural literacy assessments. The argument is illustrated with primary data from Mozambique. The correlation between individual values and respondents’ socio-economic and demographic characteristics is explored.

Talk and Gesture as Process Data

ABSTRACT This article discusses talk and gesture as neglected sources of process data (Maddox, 2015, Maddox and Zumbo, 2017). The significance of the article is the growing use of various sources of process data in computer-based testing (Ercikan and Pellegrino, (Eds.) 2017; Zumbo and Hubley, (Eds.) 2017). The use of process data on talk and gesture expands the sources of information about test performance and validity (Kane and Mislevy, 2017).