Literacy, critical literacy: The slippery word “literacy” in English includes activities of reading, writing, critical thinking as well as related historico-cultural knowledge. We can for example talk of a “scientific literacy” to evoke the domain of knowledge and know-how in science. This word is part of at least three other domains of reflection: cultural literacy (the knowledge a cultural group maintains), critical literacy (everything related to the critical consciousness of one’s own literacy and of the socio-cultural and ideological implications of this literacy), and “literacy wars” (related to questions about the (over-)valuing of writing in cognitive development—does it have primacy over other forms of communication or expression, is a culture without writing at a disadvantage and incapable of thinking in certain ways.
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