[lg policy] State literacy question

[Francis Hult]

There was an article in Nature back in 2005 that suggested Wikipedia was on par with Encyclopaedia Britannica in accuracy:
 
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html
 
Of course, then there's Stephen Colbert:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_in_culture#Wikiality
 
FMH
 
--
Francis M. Hult, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies
University of Texas at San Antonio
 
Web: http://faculty.coehd.utsa.edu/fhult/

________________________________

From: lgpolicy-list-bounces+francis.hult=utsa.edu at groups.sas.upenn.edu on behalf of Dave Sayers
Sent: Tue 6/8/2010 9:38 AM
To: Language Policy List
Subject: Re: [lg policy] State literacy question



Guys, guys, enough with censuses and 'UNESCO', whoever they are. I
direct your attention to the ultimate authority that is Wikipedia,
according to which Georgia wins with 100%:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

(On a serious note, if nothing else it might be worth starting with
Wikipedia, because students do too! Then you could go into the highly
germane pinches of salt advocated by others so far.)

On a related note, I recall an interesting contrast about literacy rates
and GDP, especially the anomalies. I am wandering out of my depth here
with the details, so please correct me, but I recall Iran having
peculiarly low literacy rates for its high GDP, while Sri Lanka has
contrastingly high literacy for its low GDP - supposedly because of the
political importance attached to Tamil. I repeat the caveat that my
memory may have wildly mangled this information; but the general point
about GDP/literacy contrasts might be a good one to get students thinking.

Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Honorary Research Fellow
School of the Environment and Society
Swansea University
d.sayers at swansea.ac.uk
http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers



On 19:59, Emily McEwan-Fujita wrote:
> Has any state government ever claimed to have achieved 100% literacy
> in an official state language among its population, measurable by a
> census or other survey? I would highly doubt the claim, but I am
> interested in the ideologies that would motivate such claims.
>
> Also, can anyone suggest sources that would provide information on
> which modern states have claimed the highest literacy rates among
> their populations?
>
> I am looking for cite-able sources, both for an article and for future
> course lectures.
>
> Thank you very much,
>
> Emily McEwan-Fujita
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