Adult Literacy in the USA, 1992–2014: Results of National and International Assessments

The article aims at revealing the change of adult (functional) literacy in the USA and defining the role played by general (country’s population growth, the system of adult education, and its funding) and specific (age, ethnicity, and race) factors. The research is based on the results of national and international assessments of the level of adult literacy in 1992–2014. The following methods were applied for the research: generalization, system, deductive, inductive, and comparative, as well as the historical method and cluster selection for analyzing statistics. The author outlined the concept of functional literacy and described demographic features of the USA on the basis of migration statistics and the ethnic and racial portrait of the country’s population. The author reviewed the American and Russian historiography of adult literacy. A brief history and the current state of the US system of adult education and the corresponding legislation were presented. The study provided data on how the system of adult education was financed and what the initial level of education of migrants and the US migrant policy and testing were. The results of national and international assessments of adult literacy in 1992–2014 were analyzed and compared by literacy types on the national scale and among ethnic groups/races in the USA. The author concluded that the USA had not met the challenge of modern literacy connected not only with rather average assessments of its level in comparison with other countries of the world, but also with significant differences in the level of adult literacy within the country, despite political interest in improving this socioeconomic index, the legislative support which was embodied in setting up the system of adult education based on regional demands, and its annually growing budget. Besides, contradictions in the information (the results of the international assessments were lower than those presented in analytical reports within the country) on adult literacy in the USA available to most Americans were revealed. Trends of the change of literacy levels shown by representatives of various ethnic groups were defined. White Americans demonstrated the highest level of all types of literacy (above the country’s average). Together with the growing level of literacy of Asians and African-Americans, it allowed the USA to remain in the middle of the list of the tested countries of the OECD. The initially low indicators of literacy of Latin Americans and their having become the largest ethnic minority in the USA by the 2000s affected the growth of the country’s literacy in the world rankings negatively. Document literacy was the only indicator which remained stable throughout this period by the results of national surveys. By the results of the international ones, it even rose both compared to the earlier assessments and to the gradually decreasing average world level.