Literacy And Mothering

How Women's Schooling Changes the Lives of the World's Children

Robert E. Levine, Sara Levine, Beatrice Schnell-Anzola, Meridith L. Rowe, and Enily Dexter

Oxford University Press, PSU LC 1421 .L58 2012


Lots of details about four country ( Nepal, Zambia, Venezuela, Mexico ) studies (1983 through 2000) of western style schooling of girls. The effects on literacy, and behavior of the mothers those girls become. Literacy is not binary; more training improves the quality of reading. Even a year or two of school can help women understand literate ways of thinking, which makes dealings with government and medical bureacracies more productive and successful.

Exposure to classroom norms creates mental models of teacher-student relationships, and encourages verbal information exchange. Pre-education cultures pass knowledge from older to younger children, parents do not explicitly teach language or ideas, merely issue commands. Educated (even partly educated) women act as "pupils" to medical professionals and learn more about health behaviors. Educated women talk to their children, enlarging their vocabularies.

Western-model education teaches categorical and socratic abstract thinking. Educated mothers teach this to their pre-school children.


Server Sky Implications

Radio is few to many. With high bandwidth and massive computation, radio can be indivudualized. Imagine capturing "mother's voice" and using it to teach children a wide range of ideas.



Mexico (Cuernavaca, Tilzapotla), Zambia ( Ndola/Chifubu ), Venezuela ( La Silsa/Caracas ), Nepal ( )

LiteracyAndMothering (last edited 2016-03-10 23:16:51 by KeithLofstrom)