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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Literacy and Emancipation: The Literacy Process in Two Cultural Revolutionary Movements (16th Century Germany and 20th Century Benin) |
Authors: | Giesecke, Michael Elwert, Georg |
Year: | 1983 |
Periodical: | Development and Change |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | 2 |
Period: | April |
Pages: | 255-276 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Benin |
Subjects: | literacy Education and Oral Traditions History and Exploration colonialism |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1983.tb00153.x |
Abstract: | Some general problems are inherent to any literacy process: e.g. the transformation of social control, fears of alientation of the world, lack of visual demonstration and dialogue. Together with the ssecific political environment of an emancipatory process, these may help to explain a series of striking parallels between literacy campaigns in 16th century Germany and 20th century Africa. The projects to which the authors refer are: the learning, reading and writing method without formal schooling, propagated by Ickelsamer in Germany in the early 16th century, and adult literacy by a peasant seif-help group in Ayou/Bénin. The specific political-cultural environments of the two literacy campaigns produced common traits which also distinguish them from other efforts to teach reading and writing to adults. The common elements, which go right down to the level of didactics, seem to be related in some way to the political contexts to which the movements reacted and within which, as elements of cultural revolution, they contributed to the initial stages of language standardization. This paper examines the problems of literacy processes and the development of standard languages. Notes, ref. |