Framing the Debate > Defining Literacy
Types of Literacy
It is common to hear reference to different types or varieties of literacy. Just a few of these are:
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Functional literacy: The level of literacy required to get along successfully on a day-to-day basis.
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Cultural Literacy: Cultural literacy is the ability to understand and appreciate the similarities and differences in the customs, values, and beliefs of one's own culture the cultures of others.
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Multicultural Literacy: Multicultural literacy is knowledge of cultures and languages, as well as the ways in which multi-sensory data (text, sound, and graphics) may introduce slant, perspective, and bias into language, subject matter, and visual content.
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Information Literacy: The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.
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Media Literacy: Media literacy is an informed, critical understanding of the mass media.
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Biliteracy: Biliteracy is knowing how to read in two or more languages.
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Visual Literacy: Based on the idea that visual images are a language, visual literacy can be defined as the ability to understand and produce visual messages.
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Computer Literacy: The ability to use a computer and its software to accomplish practical tasks.
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Mathematical Literacy or Numeracy: Numeracy is a mastery of the basic symbols and processes of arithmetic.
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Scientific Literacy.
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New Media Literacies: Particularly literacies in digital mediums and on the Internet, involving the new tools of hypertext, multimedia and electronic forms of synchronous and asynchronous communication.
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Digital Literacies.
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Technology Literacy: The ability to use new media such as the Internet to access and communicate information effectively.
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Global Literacy: Understanding the interdependence among people and nations and having the ability to interact and collaborate successfully across cultures.
Underlying all these 'types' of literacy remains a basic belief about what literacy essentially is. The list above obviously suggests a common chord that literacy is not just reading and writing. While those who advocate many of these literacy types sometimes differ with each other, in terms of what they think is really important for a literate individual and society, they share the perspective that literacy is complex and multifaceted.
