Psychology of Literacy [Paperback]

Sylvia Scribner (Author), Michael Cole (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1986

What are the intrinsic differences between the literate and the illiterate mind? The Vai, a small West African group, developed their own system of writing that flourishes today, althought no body of written literature exists and about half of those literate in Vai have never had formal schooling. Given this situation, Scribner and Cole were able to test mor than 1,000 subjects over a four-year period to measure the mental advantage of literates over nonliterates.

"An ambitious and important book—ambitious in scope and its continual reevaluation of aims and methods . . . and important for putting heretofore unexamined presumptions regarding the gognitive effects of literacy to empirical test."—Language and Society

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Cole is Professor of Communication and Psychology and Director of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition at the University of California, San Diego.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674721144
• ISBN-13: 978-0674721142
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,713,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literacy and the Mind, November 16, 2010

By 

Stephen Pellerine (In a bookshelf somewhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Psychology of Literacy (Paperback)

This book is quite a unique contribution to language, literacy, linguistics, and cognitive psychology as it addresses such themes. The Vai people (African: near Sierra Leone and Liberia) in this "Vai Project" were subjects in the testing of linguistic theory pertaining to literacy - and its development in society. The ethnography carried out was ethical and ecological.

The act if writing is quite unique to the human species - and unarguably literature is an act only carried out by human beings and as pointed out a recent act dating back to apx. 3500 BC. This book looks at Vai script in its encapsulated environment and how written text was used in this community through bush schools (boys and girls taken from their homes for 5 years of education).

One of the most interesting chapters for me was "Chapter 13: Studies of Memory" and the effects of Qur'anic learning. I am generally interested in memory so this is a very "specialist" dealing with memory pertaining to rote learning in literacy.

If you have a deep interest in literacy studies this is quite a unique book. If you are a linguistic anthropologist I assume you know of this book as it certainly must be a classic in the field (although I cannot confirm this). If you like to think of the ways of the mind and how text/written words shape our world this will also be an interesting academic read for you. I can recommend this book to engaged undergrads in such areas (anthropology, linguistics, linguistic anthropology, literacy studies) and certainly for graduate students in such fields.