Child Development Theories and Examples

Figure 3-4

A matrix of contrasts for the assessment of literacy effects.
Individuals should be tested with or without access to the external tool kit of literacy, as shown in the second row of the figure. Testing both ways is critical so that researchers can determine whether literacy effects depend on the environmental support of the tool kit. Most past assessments of literacy effects have denied access to the tools (Scribner and Cole, 1981) and thus have tested only for the residual effects of prior engagement in literate practices. Also, subjects should be tested on a range of types of task, as shown in the left column. Many of the effects of literate practices will remain obscure if only basic cognitive abilities are assessed.

An Emerging Consensus

The approach outlined here represents an emerging consensus about the effects of literacy (Bullock, 1983; Cole and Griffin, 1980; Goody, 1977; Scribner and Cole, 1981; Slaughter, 1982; Tannen, 1982; Vygotsky, 1934/1978; Zebroski, 1982). This consensus includes an appreciation of at least four major characteristics of the functioning of literate practices:
1.
Literate practices are highly diverse.
2.
The diversity includes differences not only in the tools of literacy but also in the cultural practices related to the tools.
3.
Many literacy effects depend on long exposure to organized use of literate tool kits, and the most interesting literacy effects are probably not automatic products of learning to read, write, or count. Literate practices have their effects via a long developmental process beginning in the school years and extending into adulthood.
4.
Different literate practices play different roles in mental life, and some of the most important roles seem to involve providing support for functioning at levels of cognitive development that emerge in the late school years and beyond.
Of course, the consensus is not complete. Two of the remaining controversies are especially relevant here. First, do literate practices have a pervasive effect on thinking and consciousness, or are their effects highly specific and localized? Second, are literate practices fundamental to the most advanced forms of human thinking, as Vygotsky (1934/1978) believed, or can such advanced skills develop without literacy?
Although firm answers to these questions will not be available until more of the blank cells in Figure 3-4 are filled in, we hazard two predictions. On general theoretical grounds (Fischer, 1980; Fischer and Bullock, 1981) and on the basis of available research on literacy effects (see Scribner and Cole, 1981), we expect that some form of the specificity hypothesis will survive the test of time. But along with specificity there can also be some generality. Literacy is itself a vehicle for partially overcoming the natural tendency for skills to remain localized.
Regarding the role of literate practices in advanced forms of thought, we have already proposed that modem scientific enterprises are literally inconceivable to preliterates because they involve explicit attempts to revise entire conceptual systems. It remains to be seen whether other examples of such systemic analysis can be found among preliterates (Goody, 1977).