Interdisciplinary approaches to literacy and development

Kaushik Basu is C. Marks Professor of International Studies, and Chairman, Department of Economics, Cornell University. He is also the Director of the Center for Analytic Economics at Cornell.Bryan Maddox is a lecturer in education and development at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia. He has conducted ethnographic research with adult literacy programmes in Nepal and Bangladesh. He is a member of the Association of Social Anthropologists, and specialises in inter-disciplinary research on education and poverty. Anna Robinson-Pant is Reader at the Centre for Applied Research in Education at the University of East Anglia. As a development planner, teacher educator and researcher with various international aid agencies, she has spent much of her working life in South Asia.

• 1. Introduction: Interdisciplinary approaches to literacy and development: an introduction and review of the field Kaushik Basu, Bryan Maddox and Anna Robinson-Pant 2. ‘Why Literacy Matters’: Exploring A Policy Perspective on Literacies, Identities and Social Change Anna Robinson-Pant 3. Literacy Sharing, Assortative Mating, or What? Labour Market Advantages and Proximate Illiteracy Revisited Vegard Iversen & Richard Palmer-Jones 4. Externality and Literacy: A Note S. Subramanian 5. Literacies of Distinction: (Dis)Empowerment in Social Movements Dorothy Holland & Debra Skinner 6. Literacies and Discourses of Development Among the Rabaris of Kutch, India Caroline Dyer 7. Mail that Feeds the Family: Popular Correspondence and Official Literacy Campaigns Virginia Zavala 8. ‘Making Things Happen’: Literacy and Agency in Housing Struggles in South Africa Catherine Kell 9. The Roots and the Growth of Women’s Writing in a Peruvian Village Mercedes Nino-Murcia 10. Literacy partnerships: Access to reading and writing through mediation Judy Kalman 11. Models and Mechanisms: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives on Literacy and Development Bryan Maddox 12. Afterword Brian V. Street