BOOK REVIEW

Adult basic education in the age of new literacies

By Erik Jacobson. Peter Lang, New York, 2012, 153 pp. New Literaciesand Digital Epistemologies Series, vol. 42. ISBN 978-1-4331-0600-2 (hbk),978-1-4331-0599-9 (pbk), 978-1-4539-0543-2 (e-book)

Alan Rogers

Published online: 15 September 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2013

This is in many ways a brave book. For one thing, it covers a huge literature on

digital literacies, as revealed in its bibliography. But in particular, it tackles the big

questions around ‘‘adults learning to be literate in an age shaped in part by digital

technologies’’ (p. 49).

Jacobson draws on a very wide range of reports and papers, new programmes and

research studies, quoting extensively from these. The pages are full of website

references – which make some pages hard to read; perhaps we need some new

protocols about referring to such sites outside of the main text (in footnotes or

elsewhere?). Most of these programmes and reports are from the USA (it is

important to realise, especially for the first few pages, that the book is USA-centred,

since references such as GED, mentioned many times,1 are never explained, it is

taken for granted that all readers will know them). But one of the more pleasing

aspects of this book is the way the author draws upon programmes in both Western

countries and so-called ‘‘developing countries’’ without distinction. (He does

perhaps accept the descriptions of some digitally-based programmes too uncriti-

cally.) The technology revolution impacts all parts of the world and has been taken

up by educators everywhere.

But how? This is the key question. It is a matter of choice: ‘‘We tend to use

different modalities depending on what task we are working on at the time’’ (p. 25).

The author challenges the whole concept of ‘‘digital literacies’’. It is not the

technologies which are important but ‘‘it is the use of the tool that makes the

difference, not the tool itself; […] the way in which a medium is used is more

A. Rogers (&)

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

e-mail: rogalaprof@gmail.com

1 An online search reveals that GED in fact stands for General Education Development, a trademarked

brand of tests initiated by the American Council on education in 1942 (and revised several times since) to

measure high-school level proficiency in science, mathematics, social studies, reading and writing. For

more information, see http://www.gedtestingservice.com/ged-testing-service.

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Int Rev Educ (2013) 59:647–649

DOI 10.1007/s11159-013-9381-1

important than merely having access to it’’ (pp. 56, 65; see also pp. 3–4).

‘‘[T]eachers should think about the specific genre demands of various texts and

platforms rather than a generic digital literacy’’ (p. 58). The technologies have

become too seductive – he quotes from a report: ‘‘There is a strong tendency in the

donor community to start with the technology rather than with the needs of the

community and to ask the wrong questions’’ (p. 61).

Jacobson discovers that, in general, adult basic educators use the new

technologies to support their existing work – they rarely explore the new literacies

being created by the users. This means that, rather than discover exactly how new

users are using the new technologies to create new forms of literacy, and what

affordances the new technologies could yield, teachers often impose the formal

literacies of the classroom on the new technologies. Thus they use the new

technologies ‘‘without […] a fundamental change in their literacy practices’’ (p. 3);

‘‘they replicate traditional ABE programs’’ (p. 14); ‘‘the technology has been used

within established educational structures and well-understood learning modalities’’

(p. 33); and ‘‘technology has been used to reinforce structures that were already in

place’’ (p. 121).

What have been seen by some as ‘‘new uses’’ to which the technologies are being

put are actually not really different from the old literacies. Thus the tasks of Adult

Basic Education (ABE) today with the new technologies are actually no different

from what the tasks have ever been. Although there is a possibility that the new

technologies can be used ‘‘as a method for identifying previously unexamined

literacy practices of potentially older vintage’’ (p. 5), this is rarely done. Nor are

claims of the new technologies for widening participation justified. Widening

participation is not a function of new technologies, it is a matter of programming

decision-making: ‘‘efforts to increase access and participation [have] continual

tensions around who gets to define who is ‘in need of’ education and what is best for

them.’’ (pp. 35–36). Whether the new technologies will problematise or confirm

traditional relations between teacher and learner is a matter for the teacher to decide

(pp. 55, 61). Despite claims that the new technologies empower the learners, he

points out that, if students continue not to be involved in making decisions about

what they learn, the technologies do not empower them: ‘‘we have to be aware of

how often [especially in distance learning programmes] learners are not part of the

planning or implementation process’’ (p. 51); ‘‘if students themselves are never

involved in creating and sharing […], the relationship of teacher and students

remains fixed’’ (p. 60; see also p. 27). Indeed, the new technologies have introduced

greater possibilities for exclusion and can strengthen the power of traditional

literacies (pp. 9, 19–21). The distinction between collaborative and individualised

learning depends on teacher attitudes, not on technologies (p. 34).

And the conclusion? ‘‘[T]he fundamental question that we have to answer – do

we conduct adult basic education in a way that does not question the current

political economy or structures of control, or can we imagine new forms of

participation that build on the dreams of generations of learners and teachers? If we

change nothing but the technology, then we will not have changed adult basic

education’’ (pp. 140–1). This is a brave book. This is no manifesto for digital

literacies; it is instead a manifesto for Adult Basic Education (ABE) – hence the title

648 A. Rogers

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of the book. Do the new technologies give us yet another chance to challenge the

‘‘domesticating’’ forms of ABE or will these same technologies be used to

strengthen oppressive forms of ABE? The decision lies with the teachers.

Book Review 649

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