Cultural Literacy
A popular reform movement with the moniker "cultural literacy"
has been proposed (and widely published) by E.D.Hirsch, Jr. and collegues.
Its approach maintains that for one to be well educated, one must own certain
information or facts about our world, i.e., be "culturally literate".
His premises (from his 1987 book, Cultural Literacy ) are:
- In an anthropological perspective, the basic goal of education is
accultuation, the transmission to our children of the specific information
shared by the adults of the group or polis.
- literate culture has become the common currency for social and economic
exchange in our democracy, and is the only available ticket to full citizenship....
Membership is automatic if one learns the background information and the
linguistic conventions that are needed to read, write, and speak effectively.
- Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity
for disadvantaged children.
- Mature literact alone enables the tower to be built, the business
to be well managed, and the airplane to fly without crashing.
For a critique of Hirsh's ideas, see Welcome
to Engines for Education , Chapter 3, Cultural Unliteracy.