Formal education refers to hierarchically organized, age-graded and school-based learning with certification. Compulsory education for youth is part of this formal system. Informal learning occurs outside of classrooms in an unstructured way through community activities. Nonformal learning occurs through short courses or in-service training and falls in between these two ends of the learning spectrum in that it is usually scheduled but without leading to broadly recognized accreditation. Adult basic education policy is explicitly concerned with formal education however public policy also has important effects on nonformal and informal learning opportunities. I next turn attention to the complex issue of defining literacy.

What is Literacy?

"Literacy: Reading the Word and the World" (Freire & Macedo, 1987)

Literacy has been understood in a variety of ways over the course of time. In Stein's (2001) words "the language we use to frame our arguments shapes the terms of the argument" (p. 37). The definition of literacy determines how it is measured or assessed and how it is promoted and encouraged. Whether literacy is considered as an autonomous skill or as culturally embedded has major implications for adult literacy policy and programming. Autonomous literacy encompasses several definitions of literacy as a technical skill, stand alone skill. Ideological literacy, to use Street's term (1995), positions literacy within a sociopolitical context.

Autonomous Literacy

This broad definition of literacy "refers to mainly Western theories defining literacy in terms of universal cognitive or technical skills that can be learned independently of specific contexts or cultural frameworks" (Verhoeven, 1994, p. 7). The underlying assumption in this definition is that literacy is a stand alone, technical skill that can be learnt regardless of relevance to the learner's context.

The "autonomous" model is dominant in UNESCO and other agencies concerned with literacy. It tends to be based on the "essay-text" form of literacy...and to generalize broadly from this narrow, culture-specific practice....It isolates literacy as an independent variable and then claims to be able to study its consequences. These consequences are classically represented in terms of economic "take-off" or in terms of cognitive skills. (Street, 1995, p. 29)

Autonomous literacy can be considered a generic term that encompasses basic and functional literacy. It may well be argued that it describes the public's belief about literacy as a skill that is taught to all children in schools.