In the article “Sponsors of Literacy” Deborah Brandt discusses a few cases where literacy has impacted the job market for selected individuals. Through the stories of Dwayne Lowery, Carol White, Sarah Steele, Raymond Branch, and Debora Lopez, we can see how society’s economic prosperity and literacy have a great influence on each other, as they jointly grow together.
Based on this information, how do you think the role of literacy influences the economic development of this country? What variables do you think cause one to succeed in economic literacy and one to fail? Going along with what Brandt states at the end (last paragraph on page 183) do you think we are in pursuit of literacy or that literacy is in pursuit of us? Or do you see it as a combination of the two?
1 thought on “The Economy & Literacy”
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I think this is a really interesting question, one which I have thought a lot about when thinking about applying to graduate school. I don’t think there is one right answer, yet society obviously places a value on those who completed college and subsequent years of schooling. We’re taught that by graduating a new level of schooling, we will be more literate and therefore receive more money in the field. Yet there’s a few dilemma’s with this assumption. First if we take the outliers, those one in a millions who dropped out of college and became billionaires. Was it schooling that made them literate? Or was it their genes? Certain majors in college muddle this debate even further. On many websites ranking jobs leaving college, engineers make by far the most money. Yet they are one of the few undergraduate programs that does not require another program on top of their college education. While I do believe literacy plays a large role in economic success, I find that more often the individual uses literacy for one’s own benefit.