Literacy in America : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers : 9781538189542 : 1538189542 : 07 May 2024 : Literacy in America: A Cultural History of the Past Century is a history of literacy in the United States over the last one hundred years. Told chronologically and supported by hundreds of research studies done over the years as reported in scholarly journals, the work sheds new light on the important role that literacy and reading in general have played in this country since the 1920s. The subject is parsed through the voices of educators, intellectuals, and journalists who have weighed in on its many different dimensions. Literacy is a key site of race, gender, and class, offering insights related to the social and economic inequities that are embedded in our institutions. The primary argument of Literacy in America is that literacy, as a major part of education, has functioned as a means of social control of children, with authority figures dictating which reading material is acceptab