The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Conceptions of literacy and corporate agendas

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international body representing twenty-nine countries from around the world. As part of its strategy to enhance economic performance indicators within these nations, the OECD has carried out a series of assessments on literacy levels within member countries. This thesis critically examines the definition of literacy and assessment protocols employed in the OECD's 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey within the expanded context of corporate influence on education policy. Although the OECD carried out a similar survey in 1997, its conception of literacy remained unchanged.;The International Adult Literacy Survey utilized a definition of literacy and assessment practices that reflect a functional conception of literacy instruction. Although anachronistic, functional literacy education provides individuals with certain practical social advantages. But it also can domesticate learners into a single world view. Within the context of traditional humanistic educational objectives and employing a neo-Marxist critique of functional literacy, I maintain that critical literacy education is able to respond to the ontological needs of learners in a fashion that functional literacy education cannot. I also argue that the type of literacy conceptualized by the OECD is a literacy for social control and individual inaction. It is a definition of literacy that fails to reflect the importance of human creativity and imagination, or appreciate the human need to engage in reflective action; it is, in effect, a dehumanizing conception of literacy.