Gender, Literacy, and Empowerment in Morocco

Fatima Agnaou

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781135937249
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This book's concept concerns the positive correlation between literacy and women's development and empowerment in developing countries.

1: Literacy, Gender, and Empowerment: The State of the Art

The present chapter attempts to review studies on adult literacy. One aim is to gain cognizance of the main issues pertaining to literacy research and gender and insights from the findings made by previous scholars. Another is to provide the necessary theoretical and methodological background for the issues undertaken in this book. In so doing, this chapter highlights the present study’s contribution to the field of adult literacy in general and female literacy in particular.

ADULT LITERACY RESEARCH AND GENDER: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The literature abounds with adult literacy studies that are of both a theoretical and a practical nature. Educationalists and psychologists investigate literacy in terms of the possession of the basic skills of reading, writing, and computing through standardized achievement testing (Lytle and Wolfe, 1989; Newman and Beverstock, 1990; Beder, 1991). Cognitive psychologists examine the power that has been ascribed to literacy as a skill in highlighting the importance of literacy in the building of the cognitive and psychological faculties of the illiterate (Vygotsky, 1962; Goody, 1968; Scribner and Cole, 1981). Anthropologists observe the cultural constructions of literacy and its practices among specific cultural groups (Heath, 1983; Reder, 1987). Comparative historians analyze conceptions of literacy as they change over time (Arnove and Graff, 1987; Stedman and Kaestle, 1991). Politicians of education and pedagogy address the question of literacy as a prerequisite for the changing of the stratified structure of society and as a liberating process for the oppressed masses (Freire, 1970a; Freire, 1970b; Mezirow, 1978; Dave, 1985). Linguists tackle the problem of lan guage choice in terms of mother tongue versus national language in adult literacy programs (Bowers, 1968; Dumont, 1973; Bamgbose, 1976; Shrivastava, 1980; Shaw, 1983; Coulmas, 1984). Methodologists provide guidelines regarding the use of the instruments assessing literacy (Couvert, 1979). Socio-economists of education deal with the issue of literacy as a means of the socialisation of the individual and his or her integration in the labour market (Ehrighaus, 1990; Stercq, 1993; Al-Saadate, 1993). Assessment specialists assess literacy attainments in terms of the number of years spent in school, the number of enrolments, dropping outs, and graduates, and auto-evaluation (UNESCO reports, national census) or in terms of effective application of the acquired skills (Kirsch and Jungleblut, 1986; Ziegahn, 1990). Other scholars within this perspective describe and assess the effectiveness of literacy campaign experiences across countries (Bhola, 1984; Arnove and Graff, 1987; De Clerck, 1993). Finally, gender scholarship address the question of literacy as a means of redressing women’s condition and position and as a way of attaining justice, equity and gender equality (Molyneux, 1987; Stromquist, 1987; Kazemek, 1988; Ramdas, 1989; Carmack, 1992).

This brief overview of adult literacy studies highlights the diversity of the disciplines that have dealt with the subject of adult literacy outside Morocco. These include psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, economics, education, politics and gender. A consideration of the publication dates of the studies presented above shows that interest in adult literacy evolved from the early seventies. In fact, special interest in adult literacy started with the publication of the works of Paulo Freire, who came up with critical theory and pedagogy in the field of adult literacy research. His studies ‘Adult Literacy Process as a Cultural Action for Freedom’ (1970a) and ‘The Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ (1970b) carry revolutionary perspectives in the direction of adult literacy. The author’s conception of literacy consists of stimulating the adult learners’ awareness of the conditions that perpetuate their oppression and providing them with new ways of transforming what is oppressive to gain full empowerment.

Empowerment as related to gender evolved from women’s movements in the mid 1970s with the first world conference on women in 1975. This conference gave birth to CEFDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, in 1979. The main article of the convention pleads for the promotion of equality between the sexes and claims women’s rights. Interest in gender and literacy followed in the eighties when gender scholarship strongly advocated Freire’s emancipatory conception of literacy and began to explore the place of women in society, question their oppression and marginalisation and fight for equity through literacy. In this vein, Molyneux (1987; cited in Stromquist, 1987) distinguishes between practical gender inter ests and strategic gender interests, where the former are linked to women’s basic needs like employment and family. The latter, on the other hand, are linked to women’s empowerment as they seek to redress their condition within and outside the family, to combat discrimination, oppression and violence against women, and promote their political participation. This distinction between women’s condition (practical interests) and position (strategic interests) engendered the impetus for research on gender and literacy.

Drawing on Molyneux’s gender interests, Stromquist (1987) claims that literacy instruction directed to women must undergo drastic changes so as to make them emancipatory and empowering. Likewise, Kazemek (1988) stresses the importance of rethinking and restructuring adult literacy instruction from a gender perspective. Convinced that the underlying causes of women’s illiteracy and the gender lag in education find their origins in certain political and socioeconomic arrangements in society, Ramdas (1989) calls for heightening men’s awareness to question the traditional values and attitudes toward women and criticizes male dominance in literacy policy making. In so doing, she questions the relevance of literacy campaigns addressed to women and suggests that they should draw on Molyneux’s gender strategic interests. In the same vein, Carmack (1992) states that Freire’s theory of change and social transformation should be adopted by gender studies to address women’s issues in terms of oppression, discrimination and inequity and redress their position through the design of gender specific programming that are based on emancipatory learning.

THE NEED FOR MORE RESEARCH

The emancipatory theorizing of women’s literacy has not been accompanied by empirical research on the feminization of illiteracy. In fact, women constitute the undereducated majority worldwide. In the nineties, UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, sounded the alarm on women’s illiteracy. The World Education Report of UNESCO (1993) explains that approximately 65 percent of the world’s illiterates are women. Since then, their absolute number has certainly increased. Female illiteracy is still striking in many parts of the world, notably in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab states and the Maghreb. By way of example, 67.5 per cent of women in Morocco are illiterate. Regional disparities indicate an alarming situation, as the illiteracy rate of Moroccan rural women is 89.1 percent (Direction de la Statistique, 1995).

Many studies stress the need for research in the field of adult female literacy. For instance, Kazemek (1988) deplores the fact that most prominent literacy theoreticians and researchers have depreciated the relationship between women and literacy. She states that this has significant implications for adult literacy teaching as explained by her saying that “[t]his omission of information, uses, and needs of literacy among women makes any theoretical or practical discussion of adult literacy incomplete, if not suspect” (Kazemek, 1988, 22). Likewise, Carmack (1992) suggests that literacy research should be undertaken to address the needs of women in terms of literacy and education.

Other researchers, namely Wagner (1992) and Ryan (1992) state that the lack of critical research studies on adult education development has resulted in repeated mistakes and wasted efforts. They explain that much of adult education resorts to child education as a model. Still, the difficulty of finding a common definition of literacy constitutes a stumbling block for the progress of research even in child literacy acquisition. Along this vein, Wagner (1992) claims that literacy research is hampered by the diversity of existing definitions; the scarcity of research on adult literacy acquisition, notably in developing countries; the lack of information on how literacy is acquired and retained, and how it affects both the individual and the society.

Ryan (1992) ascribes the difficulty of dealing with the issue of adult literacy to the broad gap existing between research, policy formulation and practice. The author states that this is mainly due to the nature of current research, which has not yet provided policy makers with common definitions and issues relevant to their broad perspective. He adds that in other contexts, namely developing nations, as is the case of Africa, it is the scarcity of studies on adult literacy rather than the quality or the irrelevance of research that affects the policy choices.

ADULT LITERACY RESEARCH IN MOROCCO

In Morocco, interest in adult literacy is recent. The few research works available consist of an evaluation of the government’s endeavor to combat illiteracy nationwide. This evaluation is based on official ministerial documents and/or the review of the literature on adult literacy. Examples of such research include the works of El Joundi, Eddabiali and Mahboub (1998), Essaknaoui (1998), Kabbaj (1998) and Maddi (2000).

El Joundi et al. (1998) is a monograph which gives a detailed review of past and current adult literacy campaigns in the Maghreb, namely Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania. The aim of the authors’ study is to come up with a common strategy for combating illiteracy in the Maghreb. While stressing the important efforts the Maghreb governments have made to combat illiteracy in the region since their independence, the authors report that such efforts have been handicapped by general, pedagogical and financial obstacles.

The reported general obstacles pertain to the inability to attract and motivate the non-literate, insufficient volunteer participation, increasing drop-out rates, non-mobilization of religious institutions, politicians and intellectuals to encourage effective participation, unreliability of literacy census data and the non-availability of legislative texts that would govern literacy action at national and regional levels. Pedagogical problems, on the other hand, involve insufficient pedagogical training and equipment, lack of planning of follow-up and continuing education programs, nonavailability of post-literacy materials such as books and libraries, lack of skilled and trained staff as regards literacy conceptualisation, designing, implementation and assessment, and finally scarcity of adult literacy research. Financial restrictions include insufficient premises, lack of schools, and limited funds and budgets.

Essaknaoui ‘s study (1998), which is an unpublished M.A thesis, deals with the subject of adult literacy through an analysis of literacy actions in both developed and developing nations with a focus on the Moroccan literacy policy. Based on a comparative and systemic approach, Essaknaoui states that Morocco’s anti-illiteracy efforts are handicapped by a host of problems. The reported ones include the following: the lack of political will, the non-establishment of global planning actions with long term objectives, insufficient budgets, discontinuity, non-existence of legislative laws that would govern literacy action as is the case in Kuwait, Iraq, Syria and Egypt, the weakness and centralization of the institutional structure despite the creation of a local anti-illiteracy authority and lack of coordination between the involved sectors in opposition to what takes place in other countries, namely Brazil, Afghanistan, Mali, Algeria and Mauritania.

Kabbaj (1998) addresses the issue of illiteracy as a kind of disease that requires a quick treatment as it constitutes an obstacle to the attainment of sustainable development of more than half of the Moroccan population. Drawing on Western research, the author suggests some broad initiatives to combat illiteracy. These could be summed up as follows:

1. The political will of the leadership together with the institutional power of the state play an important role in the success of a literacy campaign. This endowment has to be clearly defined and based on convictions that motivate the entire population.
2. Governmental involvement alone is not enough. Both literate and non-literate people should also be mobilized for the literacy action.
3. Priority action should involve women and girls especially in remote villages.
4. The learner should play an important role in the determination of the literacy program and its course contents.
5. Teacher training and post literacy instruction should be an integral part of the literacy programs.

In the same vein, Maddi (2000) stresses the important role of the instruc in eradicating illiteracy and sustaining the learners’ motivation. Based on his experience as a teacher-trainer, the author provides the adult learners’ instructors with workable ways of designing course objectives and aims as well as testing techniques.

Field-work based research on Moroccan adult literacy encompasses two types of studies, namely census-based studies and learner-centred studies. The former include the works of EL Anzoule (1997), and Lavy and Spratt (1997); the latter comprise the study of Boukous and Agnaou (2001).

Both the studies of El Anzoule (1997) and Lavy and Spratt (1997) question the use of the census-based literacy assessment methods that have so far been used in Morocco. In so doing, they suggest new methods based on direct assessment rather than self-report. Their claim is that their subjects have a tendency to overestimate their literacy performance through the self-report as revealed by their low performance through the direct assessment method. Elaborate information on these methods is given in chapter 2 in the section dealing with the problem of measuring basic literacy

Based on testing tasks and questionnaires, Boukous and Agnaou’s study (2001) is so far the first published empirical research that is centred on the adult learner. Convinced by the important role of literacy in contributing to social change and sustainable development, the authors seek to investigate the extent to which non-literate adults are prepared to operate functionally in the literate ecology in which they have so far been marginalized. Their findings come out with the following conclusion: instead of preparing the non-literate adult learners to have access to new resources and opportunities, Moroccan literacy instruction is rather used as a means of reproducing and perpetuating their position of dependence.

The Moroccan adult literacy studies reviewed above provide invaluable findings that bear relevance on the establishment of effective adult literacy campaigns as they describe the Moroccan government endeavors to eradicate illiteracy, show the causes of the little gain achieved in combating illiteracy; suggest new strategies for national literacy training and propose new methods for teaching and assessing literacy levels. Unfortunately almost none of these studies address the relationship between adult literacy and the learners in an empirical way. While Boukous and Agnaou (2001) have met these criteria, their study does not address illiteracy as a gender-based issue. Therefore, to obtain a general picture of adult literacy in Morocco, it is necessary to supplement these studies with others dealing with women in particular as they are the most affected members of the society by the scourge of illiteracy and constitute the majority of the beneficiaries of adult literacy courses.

In academic research, hints to female literacy versus illiteracy are often given in the form of observations in studies meant to deal with other questions. Belarbi (1991), for instance, deals with the situation of the Moroccan rural girl. Specifically, the author investigates the rural girl’s socialization within the family and the community, her health condition and nutrition, her work and delinquency, how she spends her leisure time and how she is perceived in the oral and written literature. Her education and illiteracy received scanty attention. Yet, the study reports alarming gender educational disparities, brings to light the most affected rural areas and highlights the most significant obstacles to female literacy in these areas.

The lack of studies that address the issue of women’s literacy in Morocco is probably due to the fact that the subject of adult literacy is still a new area of investigation. Another reason may be the overall limited attention allotted to women in society. Of notable exception, however, are two articles: Spratt (1992) and Agnaou (1998).

Spratt’s study (1992) investigates Moroccan women’s literacy in terms of gender inequities and their implication for development issues such as employment, fertility, and family health. The study also presents the formal and informal institutions which grant child and adult literacy in Morocco, and makes an appeal for more effective literacy work. In regard to this, the author concludes with a set of recommendations. These include: the improvement of literacy data collection techniques, more consideration of societal expectations and the need for research investigating the language needs and aptitudes of female adult learners in a second-language setting.

Agnaou (1998) investigates the language needs, attitudes, and difficulties of female participants in Moroccan adult literacy programs. While the study contributes to the language choice question in adult literacy as it brings to light the languages that answer the literacy needs of the female learners, it is limited by the fact that it assesses the learners’ reading difficulties on the basis of their opinions rather than on their real aptitude. To deal with this limitation, the present research tackles the language aptitude of the learners through an investigation of their literacy attainments (see chapter 7).

As regards unpublished work on women and literacy, Mekayssi’s thesis (1999) is a case in point. While this research has some bearing on the effectiveness of functional literacy training in the agricultural sector, it is marked by some methodological limitations. First, it deals with a limited sample and case in Tadla, which is located in central Morocco. In so doing, it restricts its study to small-scale adult literacy programs. In addition, only forty-eight beneficiaries were asked to evaluate the quality of the literacy instruction they received and the equipment used for their training in ORMVA, Office Regional de Mise en Valeure Agricole. Third, it uses the questionnaire as the only means of assessing the learners’ literacy attainments. Given the very likely subjectivity of the learners’ answers, such an assessment may result in biased findings. In addition, the author investigates female literacy needs within a monolithic perspective, which limits the functions of literacy to the applicability of a set of academic skills in the job situation to increase productivity.

Given the limitations of this research, there are two possible ways of usefully extending it. First, one might consider the empowering aspects of literacy training among a larger sample by using other instruments, namely class observation and content analysis. Second, one might also investigate the respondents’ needs in terms of their real performance to control biased opinions. This could be done within a research design that uses diverse assessment techniques. Indeed, such suggestions are taken into consideration in the present study, which investigates both the learning needs and the literacy attainments of a much bigger population within a holistic perspective that regards literacy as...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Middle East Studies History, Politics, and Law
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• List of Tables and Figures
• Introduction: Investigating Women’s Literacy in Morocco
• 1: Literacy, Gender, and Empowerment: The State of the Art
• 2: Conceptions of Literacy and Related Issues
• 3: The Planning and Organization of Moroccan Adult Literacy Campaigns and Programs
• 4: Research Design, Data, and Sample
• 5: Women’s Literacy Obstacles
• 6: Identifying Women’s Literacy Needs and Learning Needs
• 7: Responding to Women’s Literacy Needs
• 8: Responding to Women’s Strategic Needs
• 9: Toward New Perspectives of Women’s Literacy
• References