Literacy, Age and Recentness of Education Among Nordic Adults

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between reading literacy and age in an adult population aged 25 to 65 in Nordic countries using PIAAC 2012 data. More specifically, the study examined to what extent variations in the literacy proficiency of adults are explained by age and the recentness of qualifications when variables related to education, occupation, and skill use are controlled. The statistical method was regression analysis. The recentness of education explained only a part of the performance gap between the oldest adults and others. The significance of the length and scope of initial education in developing literacy proficiency overall, is difficult to compensate. There were insignificant differences between the Nordic countries. Literacy is seen as an essential key competence in every person's day-to-day life, including situations related to learning, work, and citizenship. The European reference framework for the key competences for lifelong learning (European Commission, 2007), as well as subsequent work defining twenty-first century skills (e.g., Binkley et al., 2012, p. 22), see reading literacy as one of the basic skills relevant to communication, information literacy, and digital competence.While literacy has always been defined and transformed by the changes and technologies in the surrounding society, during the last two decades, technology has undergone many changes within an extremely short period of time. Particularly, global economic competition, based on the effective use of information and communication and the Internet quickly becoming ubiquitous in people's professional and personal lives, is reflected in, and has been affected by, today's literacy practices (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2013, pp. 1151-1153 Learning how to master the new literacy strategies, practices, and dispositions is now more challenging than before, since new technologies create and demand new literacies that are multifaceted and constantly changing, while emphasizing new forms of strategic knowledge about information use and communication (Leu et al., 2013(Leu et al., , pp. 1158(Leu et al., -1162. This is a literacy challenge with which everyone, including adults of different ages, has to deal. Since both technologies and numerous texts encountered in life change continuously, reading skills also need to be defined broadly and developed continuously (Binkley et al., 2012, p. 22). Thus, literacy is not only a tool for, or a key to, lifelong learning, but is also an object of lifelong learning (e.g., Sulkunen, 2013)-now more than ever before.Solid foundational skills provide a basis for the lifelong development of literacy. International assessments have been established and implemented to determine how well adults of different ages and in various countries are equipped for the current literacy demands and for lifelong and life-wide development of literacy. The most recent and most relevant assessment for adults is the © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Lim...

The role of informal learning in adults’ literacy proficiency

“…They also showed that the main determinants of adults' literacy proficiency are education, language background, occupation and age. These findings are consistent with determinants of literacy and other cognitive skills reported in earlier studies (e.g., Desjardins, 2003;Desjardins & Ederer, 2015;Sulkunen & Malin, 2018). The independent role of age is in line with Sulkunen and Malin (2018), showing that age exerts a strong effect and exceeds even the role of a formal degree's recentness.…”

“…Our findings may result from the fact that in PIAAC indices, various kinds of reading are combined. Regarding age, which in cross-sectional studies reflects differences between age cohorts (Gustafsson, 2016;Sulkunen & Malin, 2018), and gender, the differences between earlier studies and our results also may derive from changes in reading activities during the past two decades. Much of the earlier research was published near the turn of the millennium and focussed on reading certain print texts.…”

“…This suggests that a clear difference exists in digital literacy use between working-age adults and those in retirement. However, age has been shown to be a major contributor to skill development among working-age adults as well (Desjardins & Ederer, 2015;Sulkunen & Malin, 2018).…”

“…Adult literacy studies have shown that initial formal education is key to the development of reading skills, but that its role is difficult to compensate for (Desjardins, 2003;Green & Riddell, 2012; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2000[OECD], , 2013aSulkunen & Malin, 2018). Gustafsson (2016) concludes that many of the age differences in literacy proficiency derive from cohort effects related to schooling.…”

Cognitive Foundation Skills Following Vocational Versus General Upper-Secondary Education: A Long-Term Perspective

“…Educational attainment during childhood and youth has a significant and strong effect on the lifetime literacy trajectory level -interestingly enough -but not on the form of the trajectory. Adult education does not seem to change any of these patterns (Gustafsson, 2016;Sulkunen & Malin, 2017).…”