Introducing African literacies

Abstract

"Throughout the world more than 900 million adults are illiterate, and 1.3 billion people are living in extreme poverty. Those who are not literate are, for the most part, the same people who are living in poverty (Williams & Cooke, 2002). The majority of illiterate individuals in the world are from multilingual non-western countries where the language of literacy is in most cases not the native language of the speakers. While much research has been conducted combating the causes of illiteracy, the majority of the research has taken place in literate monolingual contexts in western countries (Van de Craats, Kurvers & Young-Scholten, 2006). In these contexts, where it might have most to contribute, research about literacy is fairly scarce (see also Paran & Williams, 2007). There is, therefore, great need for further research into issues relating to language and literacy in developing countries"