Colleagues: Following is an announcement of the coming availability in
August 2008 of the Encyclopedia of Social Problems. I am pleased to
announce that I have two entries of some 1500 words related to adult
literacy issues and education. Following are the introductions to the two
entries. Tom Sticht

Illiteracy, Adult in Developed Nations

The last decade of the 20th century witnessed an unprecedented concern for
adult literacy in many developed nations. This concern was stimulated by
the completion of the first International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS)
undertaken by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) and a number of its member nations in the mid-1990s.  This entry
presents the broad outlines of the IALS, its methodology, and general
findings, with a focus on three nations, Canada, the United Kingdom, and
the United States to illustrate the methods and findings of the survey and
some issues it surfaced regarding the assessment of adult literacy. It then
briefly discusses the response of the three focus nations to the IALS.


Illiteracy, Adult in Developing Nations

For over sixty years the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has tracked the progress of nations around
the globe in achieving higher rates of adult literacy. Though nations may
define literacy somewhat differently, most consider literacy as the ability
to read and/or write simple statements in either a national or indigenous
language. Across the last half of the 20th century literacy rates of adults
aged 15 years and older increased from 56 percent in 1950, to 70 percent in
1980, 75 percent in 1990, and 82 percent as of 2004.

UNESCO's compilation of data obtained from member nations during 2000-2004
indicate that from 1990 illiteracy among adults fell by some 100 million,
from around 870 million to 770 million, or about one-fifth of the world's
adult population. UNESCO data on the worldwide distribution of adult
illiterates are presented below, followed by a brief discussion of some of
the lessons learned in the years that UNESCO has worked to stimulate adult
literacy education, primarily among developing nations.


Announcement: Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore (May 2008) —
SAGE Reference's unprecedented Encyclopedia of Social Problems is the first
single reference work to offer comprehensive, multi-disciplinary coverage of
all of the interconnected social issues in our lives, whether we confront
them on a personal, local, national, or global level. Written by experts
and scholars from a wide range of specialties, the Encyclopedia of Social
Problems contains 600+ A-to-Z entries that examine all of the major
theories, approaches, applications, and contemporary issues related to
social problems.

Coming August 2008 ISBN: 978-1-4129-4165-5 Print Price: $350 TWO-VOLUME SET
E-ISBN: 978-1-4129-6393-0 eReference Price: $435